


Someday I'll Need Your Spine to Hide Behind

by restlessqueen



Series: All At Once Was All About You [1]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Sharing a Bed, TW: drug use, minor bg couples, season 1 rewrite, tw: depression, tw: mentioned abuse, tw: panic attacks (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-03-13 21:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessqueen/pseuds/restlessqueen
Summary: “So… soulmates,” Clark chimes in. There’s a murmuring in the crowd, the word getting repeated, passed around. Luke smiles at Helena.Say no,Allie thinks.Just say no.“Fuck, fine, I don’t know, maybe. Sure, it could be soulmates,” Gordie gives in. She meets Harry’s eyes across the church, where he’s sitting, hands clasped, frowning.I better get going before anyone realizes I’m your dirty little secret.The words hang between them, painful because she doesn’t know how to deny them, doesn’t know if she can. It’s just complicated, Harry and Cassandra make it complicated.He shoots her a wry smile.Soulmates.And now that word is hanging between them too.





	1. I Guess I Never See The Signs

The first time she wakes up in Harry Bingham's bed, she thinks she's still dreaming. Not because she frequently dreams herself into Harry's bed, she _doesn't_ , but because it just doesn't make any sense. Last night had been... a lot. She remembers arriving home to a town devoid of people, the unease, and Cassandra taking charge, as usual. She remembers drinking a little too much at the church and kissing Will, who didn't kiss her back. And _then_ , she very distinctly remembers walking home, shoulders hunched against the dark, scuffing her shoes on the pavement. She remembers the long, hot shower she'd taken, crying over how silly she's been, how she shouldn't have kissed Will, shouldn't have ever thought he might like her back, crying where Cassandra can't hear her and won't come try to make her feel better. She remembers wrapping herself up in her coziest pajamas, the ugly pink ones with the llamas on them, and the blanket Cassandra made in 10th grade when she'd gone through a knitting stage, and falling asleep in her own bed.

So how can she be here? Here, where she's nestled under a heavy comforter, light slanting in from the wrong side of the room for this to be home, and Harry less than a foot away, still sleeping. She studies him, not because he looks so soft in sleep, or because the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks is a distraction, but because she's in shock. Obviously. She shouldn't be here; it shouldn't be possible. But the impossible has pretty much been the name of the game the past 24 hours.

She rolls onto her back, stares up the at the ceiling, and tries to focus on taking deep, even breaths. She should wake Harry up; maybe he has an explanation she doesn't. Maybe she sustained a head injury last night and doesn't remember and there's a good explanation for why she's _here_ , of all places. Maybe Cassandra's downstairs and- she has to cut off the mental picture she's painting there, Cassandra throws it all out of balance; there's no way she'd be caught dead in Harry Bingham's house if she could help it.

“Allie?” When she looks at him, Harry's propped up on an elbow, blinking sleepily at her, hair all mussed up, still looking a little too soft. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was actually hoping _you_ could answer that question.” Her voice comes out a lot calmer than she feels, steady and low, some natural instinct to keep her words quiet, as if that makes all this less real. “What happened last night?”

“Nothing happened last night.” Harry pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers like he might be hallucinating and this will help. “Party ended, everyone went home.”

“Yeah, and why am I here?” There's a slight note of hysteria creeping into her voice now, but Allie's not sure he notices.

“Fuck if I know. You weren't here when I fell asleep.” He doesn't seem, altogether, nearly concerned enough for Allie's liking.

“I went to sleep in my own bed last night, Harry! And now I'm here instead!”

“Maybe you sleepwalk.”

“I think I would have noticed that by now. And what, I start sleepwalking for the first time ever and climb into _your_ bed?”

Harry grins a little at that, shameless.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Didn't say anything, Pressman.”

His nonchalance only pushes her panic higher. It's settling now- this isn't a dream. This is real. “Why aren't you acting more freaked out about this? The whole town up and vanished and I fell asleep one place and woke up in an entirely different one!”

“We don't know that the whole town vanished, I thought Cassandra said they probably just evacuated, right? That's the story she's selling to everyone, anyway, huh? Look, I fell asleep in my bed, I woke up in my bed, I don't see how I have a problem. This sounds like it's all you.”

“Fuck off, Harry. You think this doesn't involve you? You think that it was just random that I ended up _here_? It's not my fault you're in some pissing contest with my sister, but leave me and your shitty attitude out of it.”

He opens his mouth to answer, but before he can get a word out, both their phones begin to chime. Allie pulls hers out of the pocket of her hoodie, suddenly incredibly glad she'd fallen asleep with it last night, hoping to hear from her mom.

“Cassandra wants us all to meet at the church in an hour to discuss our situation,” Allie half reads, half tells him.

“Well if _her majesty_ has called...”

Allie bites back what she wants to say to him and instead fights her way out from under Harry's comforter, the hardwood cold on her feet as she stands. “Piss off, Harry.”

She's halfway to the door when he calls out after her. “Nice pajama pants!”

 

Cassandra catches her sneaking in the back door. She never could seem to keep any secrets from her sister.

“Hey.” Cassandra is already dressed, coffee cup in hand.

“Hey.” Allie tugs at her sleeves, self conscious, trying to figure out what she's supposed to say here. She doesn't want to tell Cassandra about Harry, but only because it's Harry. She _desperately_ wants to tell Cassandra about Harry, because maybe her sister, her smart, pulled together, always knows the answer, sister will have an explanation.

“What were you doing out this early? And in your pajamas?”

Allie clears her throat, meets her sister's eyes. She still hasn't decided when she speaks. “Went for a walk, couldn't sleep. It's just... all been too weird, you know?”

“What? Our parents vanishing? The smell? Our bus trip to nowhere? Sounds like a regular Tuesday to me,” Cassandra jokes, reaching out to squeeze Allie's shoulder. She forces a smile back, it's probably too weak to fool her sister, but it's the effort that counts. She doesn't bounce back from things as quickly as Cassandra. Besides, she has a lot of reasons to not be smiling, and most of them aren't suspicious. 

“Anyway, did you get my text? You might want to get dressed, I wanted to meet up with some people to talk about what to do next at the church and I told everyone to be there in like 20 minutes.”

“Right,” Allie takes the escape this offers her, eager to have a minute to herself, to shake off the itchy feeling she always gets when she lies to Cassandra. “I'll just go get changed.”

 

What they find isn't good. The roads out of town just stop... overgrown, which is impossible, considering they just drove back in on them _last night_. But lots of impossible things seem to be happening lately, Allie thinks glumly to herself. Why should this be any different?

“This isn't our town,” Will murmurs to her, as they walk back from the bridge. He doesn't use the word “home” the way almost everyone else does, and Allie gets it. Will's lived with a handful of different families here since his parents died. He hasn't had a home in a long time. She'd tell him he can share hers- he's already staying there, but the memory of the kiss he hadn't wanted lingers around the edges of her mind, and she can't quite find the right words.

It's not until mid-afternoon that she finds out she's not some sort of anomaly. Cassandra would tell her eavesdropping isn't polite, but Allie's never been quite as polite as Cassandra anyway. So when Erika and Madison walk by, heads together, talking in hushed but urgent voices, and Allie catches the words “swears she's never even been to his house, she just woke up there,” she can't help herself. She only trails them for a little while, just long enough to get a grasp on the situation, and that is this- she's not alone. It's happening to other people too.

She's on her way home when she spots Harry, lounging on a bench near the gazebo, book in hand, leaning back with his legs stretched out and ankles crossed, the perfect picture of calm. Allie doesn't even think about it before she changes direction.

“It wasn't just us,” She tells him, swinging around the end of the bench to sit down next to him.

“Well, hello to you too.” Harry closes the book, no bookmark, and lets it rest on his stomach.

“Didn't you hear me? It wasn't just us! I heard Erika saying that Gwen woke up in Andrew Freedman's bed and Clark's _pissed_. They both swear they have no idea how she got there. See? Not just us!”

Harry's got that amused quirk to his lips she saw just this morning again. “You keep saying “us” but I think this is a _you_ problem, Pressman. I didn't wake up anywhere but my own bed.”

“You seriously think this has nothing to do with you?”

“Why should it?”

“Because it's not just us!”

“ _Or_ Gwen cheated on Clark and is trying to cover it up.” Harry shrugs. “Stranger things have happened. I heard she's got some guy on retainer or something.”

“That's not true.”

“Or something.”

“Fine.” Allie stands up. “I can pretend everything is normal too, but eventually you're going to have to admit I'm right.”

“Don't hold your breath, Pressman.” She waves him off, somehow feeling a little calmer as she heads back home. Cassandra will be wondering where she is.

* * *

 

 

In hindsight, she doesn't really know how it happens. It's like the world keeps tilting and sending her tumbling back to wherever Harry is. It's illogical. He doesn't ask her to be his partner in fugitive because he wants it to be _her;_ he asks her because Kelly already said no. She knows this, he knows this, but she shows up anyway.

She just wants to forget for a little while. And like she said, Harry has a fast car. But maybe she's a little too good at forgetting. If she hadn't so thoroughly thrown away her usual inhibitions and current fears, she probably wouldn't have gotten hit by a car. She likely wouldn't have gone to the fugitive after party. And she definitely wouldn't have ended up losing her virginity to her sister's arch nemesis, Harry Bingham. Yeah, even she can't quite wrap her head around that last one.

It's been two hours since they'd gotten redressed in silence and made their way back down to his kitchen and she's still not sure how to feel about it. She likes to think she always had a pretty realistic idea of what sex would be like, but... she'd just expected it to be _more_ _._ More anything, really. It's not like it was awful, or anything- it had been... rushed, and a little awkward, and kind of vaguely uncomfortable, though not painful like so many of her friends had warned her. Harry had managed to get her off first, but in a sort of mechanical and uninvolved way, like it was a step he had to fulfill, a resigned obligation he had accepted and therefore learned how to do as efficiently as possible before his dick was allowed to get involved. She never even got her bra off. The whole experience had just been... underwhelming, she supposed. It leaves her wondering if he's ever had sex with anyone but Kelly. She'd never considered it before, but seems like they've been together for forever, and Harry's popular, he's not a porn star.

The power had flickered, momentarily plunging them into darkness, and that had been when Allie felt reality settle back over her, unbelievably heavy.

“I guess we should go see what that's about,” Harry had sighed, not sounding like he particularly planned on moving anytime soon.

“Yeah,” she agreed, sitting up and scanning the room for her shirt. Harry followed suit, albeit slowly, and Allie got dressed quietly, not sure how to look at him anymore. He was done first, and he hovered for a moment, like he wasn't sure if he should leave her there in his room or not.

“I'll catch up,” she'd told him. She'd needed a moment, to process and think and sort all these feelings into neat little boxes in her chest.

“Sure.” He hadn't sounded sure, but he went anyway.

 

“Who've you been sleeping with?” Cassandra asks her, a few days later, after she informs Allie she probably has a UTI. But she can't tell her. Not when the answer is Harry. And it's not like that, not really. It had only been the once. She's not _sleeping_ with Harry. She slept with Harry. There's a difference. And it's a big enough difference that Cassandra definitely doesn't need to know. Yeah, she's woken up every single morning since they ended up in this awful place in Harry's bed instead of her own, but that's hardly her fault. She doesn't have a choice in that. She's had to take to setting her alarm absurdly early and sleeping with her phone in her pocket, just so she can make it back to the house before anyone else realizes she's gone. Harry's not a big fan of being woken up at the crack of dawn every morning, but he's not the one who has to climb out of bed and walk across town in the increasingly cool morning air, so he doesn't get a say. They haven't talked about what happened between them. Most mornings, he mumbles a muffled goodbye when she crawls out of his bed, and that's all she sees of him.

“I'm not going to yell at you, I'm not Mom,” Cassandra prompts, voice gentle, concern on her face, and Allie hates that, that she's just another thing for Cassandra to be concerned about.

“I just don't really want to talk about it. He's not- It was just a one time thing.”

“Okay,” Cassandra says slowly, “but you wanted to, right? He didn't pressure you into it or anything?”

“No. It was my idea.”

“Okay,” Cassandra says again. “Okay. There's cranberry juice in the fridge if you want, and I can ask Gordie about figuring out some antibiotics if you need it.”

“Thanks.”

Her sister gives her one last strained smile before she leaves the bathroom, and Allie stays there for a while, just trying to gather her emotions back up. When she's done, she stands up, flushes the toilet, washes her hands, and puts on a brave face. If Cassandra can pretend everything is normal, she can too.

 

It comes out slowly, the truth that Allie had already suspected since she overheard Erika and Madison talking, over a week ago; it's not just happening to her and Harry. There are pairs of people, not loads of them, or at least not loads that are speaking up about it (she and Harry haven't), that keep waking up in each other's beds, no matter where they fall asleep. Gwen and Andrew, Helena and Luke (though it had taken them a while to notice it, since they often went to bed together anyway) a freshman girl Allie doesn't know and a guy from her Biology class, Jessica and Blake, Marnie and Olivia. And her and Harry, not that anyone else knows it.

“And what does Her Highness say about all this? About us?” Harry asks, when Allie finally brings it up to him. It's just after lunch, and she'd caught his eyes as he was leaving the cafeteria. Allie had just finished a long conversation with Gwen about the whole situation, trying not to sound too interested. She'd just wanted to know how closely their experiences lined up. Harry had followed her around the corner to the gazebo when she'd tilted her head in that direction, hands in his pockets, casual, like they hang out in public all the time.

Allie can't meet his eyes. “I don't... I don't think Cassandra needs to know.”

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Keeping secrets from our fearless leader?”

“Harry.”

He grins at her, that small amused smile that she's already too familiar with.

“Even if I told her the truth... People will assume things, even Cassandra, and the last thing I need is to be stuck in the middle of you two. No one needs to know about this.”

“But you said they already _do_ know about this, Gwen and Andrew, Helena and Luke, and that weird guy with Lexie.” He trails off, quiet for a moment. “Will and Kelly.”

Allie blinks at him, stunned. “Will and Kelly?”

“You didn't know?”

No. She didn't. The pain seeps in slowly, an ache deep in her gut that she can't quite explain. It's not like it _means_ anything, right? They don't know that it means a damn thing. “Kelly told you that?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, like it doesn't matter to him, but she knows it does.

“Did you tell her about us?”

Harry looks away. “Which thing about us?” He does this sometimes, makes her face stuff about them she doesn't want to talk about.

“Did you?”

“No. I didn't tell her anything. That's not the point, why are you so adamant about hiding it? Everyone already knows what's happening.” Harry looks at her then, like if he looks hard enough, he can strip her right down to her bones and see the truth nestled under her ribs.

“Yeah, they know it's happening to people. They don't know it's happening to _us_. And they don't need to.”

“Why does it matter?”  
  
“Because... Look, maybe if we'd never... you know, but we did, and if people find out that we're also one of these weird teleportation duos, then they'll start _asking_ , and I'm not good at lying to my sister.”

“Ah,” Harry leans back, and he's still got that little smile on his lips, but his eyes have gone cold. “So that's what this is about. Can't have Cassandra finding out you're sleeping with the enemy.”

“ _Slept_ with the enemy,” Allie corrects, before she can stop herself.

“And continue to wake up in his bed every morning.”

“That's _different_ ,” Allie snaps. It's true, but she can't control that. She'd only had sex with Harry the one time, but if any of this gets out, no one will ever believe that; Cassandra will never believe that.

“Whatever, Allie.” Harry stands up, body loose and relaxed and completely at war with the sharpness in his eyes. “I better get going before anyone realizes I'm your dirty little secret.”

* * *

 

 

“I don't know what's causing this,” Gordie announces to everyone, when it becomes a big enough deal that Cassandra finally calls a meeting about it, “but I have some theories. On a subatomic level-”

“Soulmates!” someone in the crowd yells. Allie feels something in her chest seize. That's not it; that can't be it. If this were about soulmates, she wouldn't have ended up with Harry, would she? It should have been Will, and Harry should've been with Kelly.

“Technically, I'm not sure that's a scientifically quantifiable theory,” Gordie says, grimacing.

“That's not a no,” Jason points out.

“Well... No, it's not a _no_ , but I don't think there's any way to _prove_ that anyone is someone's soulmate, much less these specific duos. I think we just have to accept there's something cosmic going on here.”

“So... soulmates,” Clark chimes in, a frown threatening. There's a murmuring in the crowd, the word getting repeated, passed around. Luke smiles at Helena. _Say no_ , Allie thinks. _Just say no._

“Fuck, fine, I don't know, maybe. Sure, it could be soulmates,” Gordie gives in. She meets Harry's eyes across the church, where he's sitting, hands clasped, frowning. _I better get going before anyone realizes I'm your dirty little secret_ _._ The words hang between them, painful because she doesn't know how to deny them, doesn't know if she can. It's just complicated, Harry and Cassandra make it complicated.

He shoots her a wry smile. _Soulmates_. And now that word is hanging between them too.

 


	2. My Sense of Wonder's Just a Little Tired

Allie has a routine now. She has a drawer in Harry's dresser, one he'd cleared out with several heavy sighs and halfhearted complaints, where she's stashed enough clothes to not have to change them out for a week at a time. Her alarm goes off at 5 am sharp, every morning, and she forces herself out of the warmth of Harry's bed and away from the shrinking distance between them as they become accustomed to sleeping in the same space. Sometimes, Harry wakes up briefly, just to mutter things like “I fucking hate your alarm,” and “Every fucking morning,” and once, “Come back, I'm cold.”

She makes the ten minute walk back to her house, puts on the hot water in the kitchen, and has a large cup of hot tea and whatever else she can scrounge up for breakfast. A few times, she'd attempted to go back to bed, but each time had resulted in waking up back at Harry's, and it's much harder to sneak out of his house, now full of people, once everyone's awake, so she's given that up.

“You've turned into quite the early bird,” her sister comments, after three straight days of finding Allie in the kitchen with her tea, a little after sunrise.

Allie shrugs, and stares down into her mug. She doesn't want to lie to Cassandra more than she has to, but she doesn't want to tell her the truth either. She didn't _choose_ this, but she can't help but feel like it's a betrayal to Cassandra either way. She's listened to her sister complain about Harry for years, before all this, she'd never even considered trying to form her own opinion of him. He was just Cassandra's rival, that was it. She thinks about the way he smiles when she says something he isn't expecting, like he just can't help it, and how huffy he gets when he's woken up in the morning. She isn't sure what Harry is, but he's more than Cassandra's rival.

“You can tell me,” Cassandra says, “if something's bothering you.”

“Everything's bothering me,” Allie responds. “This whole place bothers me.”

“I know, but... I know you're not telling me everything.”

“Do I have to?”

Cassandra looks momentarily taken aback. “Of course not... I just thought you might want to talk? You can tell me what's going on with you, you know?”

“I know.” Allie takes a sip of her tea and tries to figure out how to say what she means without hurting her sister's feelings. “I don't want to tell you until I figure out how I feel about things. I want to know that I'm making decisions because of how I feel, not because I don't want to disappoint you.”

Cassandra blinks at her, then purses her lips, the way she does when she hasn't decided what she wants to say yet. “Is this about Mr. “one time thing”?”

Allie lets out a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Alright.” Her sister is choosing her words carefully, just like she does when she stands up at the front of the church and explains her plans. “Just be careful. Please?”

“I am.” Allie doesn't bother to correct Cassandra's assumption. It's not really what her sister thinks, but that doesn't matter. She's right, she needs to be careful.

 

Three days later, Allie gets sent home early from her cafeteria shift. She'd tried to warn them she'll be no good there, but everyone does every job, that's the rules. They've only given up on her now that it's clear she causes more work for everyone else.

She goes to the gazebo to wait out the rest of her shift. She doesn't want to go home and explain to Cassandra that she's such a bad cook they literally begged her to leave. The only thing Allie's ever been any good at making is tea and maybe toast if she's feeling adventurous.

“Aren't you supposed to be at your shift?”

Harry's standing at the entrance of the gazebo, hands shoved in his pockets, squinting a little against the bright sunlight. He looks tired- more tired than he should be, dark circles under his eyes. She doesn't know what _his_ problem is, she's the one who has to get up absurdly early every morning.

“They've taken me off kitchen duty.”

“What for?”

Allie grimaces, considers lying to him, but figures he'll hear the real story anyway, and he'll probably give her even more hell for it then. “I keep burning things.”

Harry laughs, bright and loud, and he looks almost as surprised about it as she is. She hasn't heard him laugh since that night of fugitive, she realizes. He's been a rather quiet presence around town since Cassandra had rallied everyone around her. She's not sure if he's given up protesting publicly, or if he's just biding his time. Harry crosses the space between them to sit down on the bench next to her.

“Even I'm not that bad,” he grins, “and I don't think I'd ever made anything more than spaghetti before all this.”

“Hey!” Allie defends herself, “Not everyone can be a great cook! Cassandra's always been better than me at that stuff. At everything, really.”

“Come on,” Harry nudges her shoulder with his own. “There's gotta be something you're better at.”

Allie chews on her bottom lip, thinking. She has exactly one answer, and she's not sure Harry will be particularly impressed with it, but...

“Okay, yeah. I can pretty much kick anyone's ass at air hockey.”

Harry huffs out a surprised laugh, his eyes lighting up. “Care to put your money where your mouth is, Pressman?”

 

“How did you even know this was here?” Allie asks, running her fingertips over the top of the air hockey table, letting her fingers bump over the texture in an even, measured way that she finds oddly comforting.

They'd had to climb in an open window of the Carlson's house and then go down to the basement to get here. The Carlson's were an older couple, with grown kids, who Allie never knew very well. Allie doesn't think anyone has been here since everything. She kind of doubts the Carlson's used this space much either. It's got an ugly old couch, a big tv, and the air hockey table.

“Clara, their oldest daughter, used to babysit me sometimes,” Harry explains, “You know, once I was old enough that a full time nanny seemed pointless, but young enough my mom thought leaving me alone for long periods of time was a bad idea.”

“I think that's probably still a bad idea.”

“Yeah? You think I'm the type to cause trouble?”

“The first time I hung out with you I got hit by a car.” _And lost my virginity,_ Allie adds silently.

“As I recall,” Harry says, walking around to the other side of the table and flipping the switch on the side that turns the air on, “I was the one who freaked out about that and you were the one who laughed your ass off. I think _you_ might be a bad influence on _me._ ”

“Funny.”

He fishes one of the pucks out of the slot in the side of the table. “Come on, Pressman. Let's see those air hockey skills, then.”

Allie lives up to her reputation, beating Harry in four consecutive games, laughing while he curses and throws her unconvincing glares from the other end of the table.

“Best out of fifteen,” he demands, when he definitively loses 'best out of ten.' At some point, that now seems distant to her, Harry had found some wine in one of the cupboards upstairs and they're both a little tipsy from it.

“You're not going to win, Harry. I'm just the superior player.”

“Well, then you have nothing to be scared of.” It's the taunting smugness of his tone that does it.

“Oh, fuck you, come on, let's go.” She narrows her eyes at him, fully prepared to destroy him entirely. Harry smiles, triumphant. He loses every single one of the next three rounds. It's not even close, the alcohol making him even worse than he was before.

Allie cheers when she wins the last one, laughing and unable to contain the urge to rub it in a little bit. She sticks her tongue out at him and does a victory dance that leaves him rolling his eyes.

“Has anyone ever told you that sore winners are actually the worst?” Harry asks, but he's grinning, as he takes a long pull from the nearest wine bottle.

“Doesn't make me less of a winner, though. You _really_ suck at this.”

“Careful,” he warns.

“Or what? What exactly are you going to do, Harry?” His smile turns wicked. Faster than she can comprehend, he's stolen one of the pillows off the couch and is advancing on her.

“Don't you dare!” And then she's scrambling, unsteady on her feet as she dives for her own weapon, Harry on her heels. In a matter of moments, it's all out war. Their wine induced aim is terrible, pillows flying, tripping over their own feet, and laughing so hard they can hardly breathe. Harry catches her around the waist and then they're spinning, spinning, her feet off the floor, and she's laughing, clinging to him while the world turns too fast around them. He stops, eventually, but everything is still spinning and he's there, at the center of it. She's breathless and he's so close. Sometimes Allie thinks she could really like Harry Bingham, more than she ever should.

“What are you guys doing down here?” Allie startles away from Harry, turning to find Luke standing in the doorway, his face screwed up in confusion. She watches his eyes sweep over the scene, the couch pillows scattered, the wine bottles on the floor.

“What are you doing here?” Harry shoots back.

“Someone texted the guard about the lights being on in here. Cassandra sent me to check it out. It's pretty late, most people aren't up anymore.”

“We were just...” Allie gestures at the air hockey table. “You know.”

“Right...” Luke rubs the back of his neck, looking decidedly uncomfortable. For a moment, Allie feels a wave of annoyance. It's not like they were doing anything wrong, they were just messing around like normal kids. Then she realizes it's probably not so much _what_ he walked in on that's making Luke uncomfortable, but _who_.

“Walk you home, Allie?” Luke offers, finally, the question coming out a little stilted. She glances over at Harry, but he's staring at his shoes, and he doesn't meet her eyes.

“Okay, yeah.” She takes a couple of steps in Luke's direction, before turning back around to look at Harry again. He's watching her this time, but all the humor's gone from his face, and she can't read him at all. “See you later?”

“Yeah, sure.” His voice isn't cold, exactly, but it's lost all its warmth.

“O-kay. Bye, Harry.”

Luke doesn't say anything until they're back outside on the sidewalk and halfway to Allie's house. “You and Harry?”

“It's not like that.”

“You sure he knows that?”

Allie hesitates. “Just... don't tell Cassandra?”

Luke looks at her for a long moment, expression unreadable. “It's not my business,” he says, finally. They make the rest of the trip in silence, and Luke leaves her at the door with a pat on the shoulder and weak smile. Allie climbs the steps of her porch, closes the front door softly behind her, and tiptoes up to her room. She gets dressed for bed mechanically, mind already elsewhere, ten minutes across town, in Harry's bed.

* * *

 

 

She spends Saturday hanging out with Will for the first time in almost a week. Before, they never would have gone more than two days without figuring out a way to spend time together. Things have been different between them since they ended up in this strange place. Or maybe just since Allie kissed him; she isn't sure. But she misses him. He's her best friend, he's been her best friend for years, and having this distance feels undeniably wrong.

They pop popcorn and marathon Lord of the Rings, staked out on Allie's sofa, her feet in his lap, and his feet up on the coffee table, various members of the guard and other friends floating through the room. It feels good. It makes it easier to pretend like things are still normal. This could be any day from the past year, any time. For a little while, they can pretend like none of it ever happened.

Then she has to go and ruin it. They've just started Return of The King, most of the popcorn gone, the music swelling on the tv and... She's not sure what makes her say it.

“Why didn't you tell me about you and Kelly?” She still doesn't know if she's more annoyed or hurt. She just knows whatever it is, it doesn't feel good.

Will looks at her, sharply, lips parting in surprise. “How do you know about that?”

“Harry told me.”

“Oh, great, he's running his mouth about it. Should've known. I told Kelly not to tell him.”

“He's not _running his mouth_ , he just told me because-” Allie cuts her own words off abruptly, scared how close she was to just blurting it all out.

“Because why? You two aren't even friends.”

“We hang out sometimes.”

“Since when?”

“Since the whole rest of the world turned upside down, obviously. That's not the point- He just assumed I already knew, that you would've told me.” And she's still embarrassed that he hadn't, she realizes.

Will takes a long, slow breath. “Look, it's just... We just wanted to keep it private, just for us, you know? It's hard to explain, but it's kind of intimate.” He shrugs helplessly.

“Right...” Allie knows she's being a hypocrite. She shouldn't be mad at Will for keeping Kelly a secret when she's doing the exact same thing with Harry but... it feels different. Will's had a pretty open crush on Kelly for years- why wouldn't he want Allie and other people in general to know something has finally happened there? There are a million reasons that she wouldn't want people to know about Harry. Cassandra tops that list.

“We're not together,” Will says, “Kelly and I, I mean. She and Harry haven't been broken up that long and she's sort of been, struggling with some shit, so we're not _together_. But we're talking about it.”

“Okay.” It doesn't feel as bad as Allie thought it would, and she doesn't know how to feel about that. She thought it would be like a knife to the heart, the way it had felt when she'd kissed Will and he hadn't kissed her back, but it's something duller than that now.

“You're not mad, are you?”

“No, I'm not mad. You're my best friend, I want you to be happy. And I like Kelly, she's really nice. I just miss... how much easier things used to be.” She thinks that's the truth. A month ago, things were so simple- her life, her friendships, even her crush. Nothing feels simple now.

“Yeah,” Will sighs, “me too. I can't believe thought trying to pass A.P. European History was going to be the worst part of my year.”

“To be fair, I told you that wasn't going to be the worst part of your year _way_ before any of this shit happened.”

“You just _love_ being right,” Will teases.

“What can I say? I'm just so good at it.”

Will rolls his eyes pointedly and elbows her in retaliation. It's the first time things have felt genuinely normal between them since she kissed him.

 

She wouldn't say she's been avoiding Harry since Luke caught them hanging out, she just hasn't really talked to him, either. He's been sleeping heavily the past few mornings, hardly even stirring at the sound of her alarm, and she can't seem to get the way his face had gone all closed off at the arrival of Luke the last time she'd spoken to him from replaying in her head. Harry's not always easy to read at the best of times, masking so much under a layer of sarcasm and humor, but he'd been downright wooden as she'd left. She doesn't understand that- she always seems to be exuding something, can't ever seem to help it, even her coldness has a palpable anger to it. He'd just gone... flat. Allie wishes she knew what was under that.

Harry's seemed pretty content with their whole arrangement (and why shouldn't he be? _He_ gets to sleep in) so she's actually startled when he approaches her after Cassandra's latest town hall, that practiced air of casualness perfectly in place. He slides into the row behind her, as everyone else is filtering out. Allie hasn't gotten up yet; she usually waits for Cassandra, who ends up answering questions and listening to concerns up at the front of the church after each meeting.

“I got you something,” Harry says, hands braced on the back of the pew she's sitting in, leaning over it to talk to her.

“What?” She's surprised, and nervous at the way Will's looking back at them, halfway up the aisle, with a frown of concern pulling at his lips. She waves him on, hopes he doesn't think too much about it.

“You gotta come outside to see. I thought it might draw too much attention if I brought it in with me.”

“That is not comforting.”

“I'm wounded. It's like you don't trust me at all.” Harry's already straightening up, and Allie casts one quick glance at Cassandra, who's in a serious looking conversation with Lexie, before she follows him out of the church. By the time she catches up to him, he's already retrieved whatever it is and is holding it behind him, walking backwards to face her so she can't see it.

“You're gonna be impressed.”

“Doubtful. Now what is it?”

Harry unveils her gift with a sarcastic flourish. “Ta-da.”

“This is a hockey trophy.” She takes it from him. It's surprisingly heavy, more of a bronze than a gold color, and not as shiny as the dance and acting trophies all lined up in Cassandra's room.

“Yep.”

“Why are you giving me a hockey trophy?” Allie asks, eyebrows raised.

“Well, I don't think they make ones for air hockey,” Harry, responds, very serious. Allie has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, but she thinks he notices anyway.  
  
“I think they probably _do_ , actually. They make pretty much anything, Harry.”

“Okay, sorry, correction- I don't think anyone in West Ham owns an air hockey trophy. And Amazon Prime isn't exactly delivering these days.”

“Did you cross out Gwen's little brother's name with a sharpie?”

“Guilty?” He doesn't look guilty, grinning shamelessly, clearly very pleased with himself. She refuses to admit she's a little pleased with him too.

“This is the most fucked up present anyone's ever given me.”

“You're very welcome.”

“I'll cherish it forever,” she says sarcastically. Harry's grin widens.

“As you should.” The front door to the church bangs open, sending Allie's heart up into her throat, but Harry's already walking away from her before anyone steps out, and when they do it's only Blake.

“Don't get too attached, I'm coming for that title, Pressman!” Harry calls over his shoulder as he goes.

* * *

 

 

Allie and Cassandra don't fight. They just don't. Snap at each other? Yeah. Occasionally bicker? Sure. But they never fight, haven't since they were little. So the pure rage that is crawling up her throat being directed at Cassandra is new. It scares her a bit.

They've had their work shifts for a while, but Cassandra's just posted the committee lists and Allie isn't on a single one of them. All their friends are- even Will, who's more hers than Cassandra's. It's not just upsetting, it's humiliating. And Cassandra didn't even warn her. That's her _sister_ , she should have told her.

She burns out her first wave of anger in the kitchen, while Cassandra watches her with surprised, hurt eyes, like it never even occurred to her that Allie might be considered. She says it's just political, because Allie's so close to her, but she's not really sure she buys that. Like people won't see those lists and know that everyone on them are Cassandra's best friends. No one will care whether or not Allie is included too, and maybe that also pisses her off a bit. No one really cares what Allie does at all. She's the afterthought.

Allie storms up to her room after the argument, most of the fury burning low enough that it melts into a sullen sort of pain instead. The rest of it turns sour in the back of her throat.

It's not like she doesn't know she isn't as good as Cassandra, that she never has been and never will be as good as Cassandra, because she _knows_ , but that doesn't mean she's useless. It doesn't mean she doesn't have anything to contribute. Sometimes, she just gets really tired of being the shadow to Cassandra's sun.

She lies on her bed until she has to either get up and get ready for prom, or not go at all. She considers the second, she's not really in the mood, but if she doesn't go their friends will ask her why and she'll have to lie or explain and she doesn't really want to do either of those things. So instead, she drags herself out of bed and goes to take a shower.

Allie bumps into Cassandra in the bathroom, as her sister is finishing up her makeup. The silence between them is awkward, and everything about it feels wrong. They don't fight, so they don't know how to make up, either.

“Is he at least taking you to prom?” Cassandra asks, and for one heart stopping moment, Allie thinks she means Harry, but then she realizes she just means whoever the guy is.

“No. We didn't even talk about it.”

“It's okay,” Cassandra says, soft, “you know. To find something to be happy about here. We don't have to be miserable just because we're in a miserable place.”  
  
“It's not- I don't even know if I actually like him, or if it's just... convenient. Easy to fall into, after everything, you know?”

“Mmmm...” Cassandra looks away for a moment, into her own reflection in the mirror, then back at her. “You seem to be thinking pretty hard about it for something you're calling “easy,” Allie. Maybe it's not easy at all, maybe you just like him.”

“It's Harry.” It bursts out of her, the secret that's been on the tip of her tongue every time she sees Cassandra for weeks now. Nothing's really changed, she just couldn't hold it in any longer. Maybe it's because she's still a little angry- she's wielding the information as a weapon, meant to cut. She regrets it immediately.

Cassandra's eyes go wide. “It's...”

“It's Harry. That's why I didn't want to talk to you about it. And it's not just... We're one of those pairs. I wake up in his bed every day, no matter where I go to sleep, and I've been getting up so early so I could get back here before people noticed. We only slept together once, I swear, and I didn't know how to tell you because it was impulsive and I don't know how I feel about it and because- because it's Harry.”

“And you like him,” Cassandra says slowly.

“No! Or... I don't know, sometimes it feels like I could. Like... I just, didn't know him before. I don't really know him now, I guess.”

Someone bangs on the bathroom door. “It's time to go!” Bean yells through it.

“Can we talk about this when we get home?” Cassandra asks, still looking a little shellshocked. _No_ , Allie wants to say. She never wants to talk about it. She wishes she could just rewind the whole world five minutes and stop herself from saying anything at all. It's too late for that now.

“Sure. We'll talk about it later,” is what she says instead.

 

Prom is... a lot more emotionally exhausting than she thinks it's supposed to be. She avoids Cassandra. She avoids Will and Kelly. She avoids anyone who looks like they might open their mouths and ask if she's okay. And she dances, dances and dances and tries not to think about all the reasons she shouldn't be having any fun right now.

She watches the guard messing around on the dance floor, for a moment just a bunch of idiotic teenage boys again. She watches Sam and Becca arguing, hands moving so quickly that with the alcohol in her veins her brain can't keep up. Bean in the DJ booth, Cassandra and Gordie with their arms around each other, Helena smiling at Luke. Will and Kelly.

Allie can't help it, she watches them, doesn't even worry about being caught because they only have eyes for each other. They light up together. It makes her momentarily sad, because not in all her life, not even at the peak of her crush for Will, does she ever think anyone's made her feel lit up like that. That looks special.

Some people just don't get those things, Allie reminds herself, and then goes to find another drink. She finds Harry as well, up at the bar, working with the practiced ease of someone who's mixed a lot of drinks. Allie doesn't really care what she has, she just wants something to make her brain go soft and her limbs all relaxed. She wants to not wonder what it feels like to be Will and Kelly.

She feels kind of far away from herself, and it's a relief. Harry gives her a drink, which she accepts, and asks her dance, which she declines. It's too much, too complicated, too something. She thinks she tells him something along these lines, but she can't really be sure anymore. She leaves him there, and goes to forget.

 

Things wind down late, sometime after two in the morning. Normally, she'd stay and help Cassandra clean up. But if she stays, she'll probably have to talk about Harry, and she doesn't want to do that tonight. So instead, she slips out with the crowd and walks home with her heels in her hand, the pavement cool against her feet. The house is quiet when she arrives, lights on in the bedrooms, but no voices. She climbs the stairs to her bedroom feeling like she exists outside of time, a phantom in her own house, distant from everything and everyone.

Allie's tired, and emotionally drained- from her fight with Cassandra, from her whiplash of feelings with Will, from thinking and thinking and thinking, and then from drinking all the thoughts away. She swears she's just going to sit down and rest on her bed for a minute. Just one minute.

She wakes up too warm, with the seams of her dress digging into her arms and ribs. Harry's asleep on his back on top of the covers, head turned away from her, just in his boxer briefs. She should get up, stumble home and back to her own bed, make excuses to Cassandra, and get away from here when he looks like that. But what would be the point? She'd just wake up here again. Instead, she sits up and tries to reach the zipper on the back of her dress. Her fingers are clumsy, her limbs heavy. Next to her, Harry stirs.

“Allie?”

“I can't get out of this stupid dress and you're on top of the covers,” she complains, frustrated and tired and irrationally sad.

“C'mere,” he mumbles, sitting up groggily and reaching for her. It takes him two tries, but he gets the zipper down, and then the dress up over her head, and then he's just so close- warm and blurry and _close_ , and Allie doesn't think about it, she just kisses him. He tastes like that mixed drink he gave her, the sweet one that she doesn't know the name of.

“I thought you said we shouldn't. Too complicated or something,” he murmurs against her lips.

“I think it might already be complicated,” Allie admits, braver with the whiskey in her veins.

“Yeah,” Harry breathes, and then he kisses her back. Once can be a mistake, but twice is deliberate. She knows this, wonders distantly if this might mean something to her in the morning, but at the moment she doesn't care.

This time, everything is slow. Harry maps the red lines her dress has left on her skin, first with his fingertips, then with his lips. Allie melts into him, fuzzy and warm and just good. God, she feels good. The world has become all fragmented, broken down to flashes and staggered breaths, her fingers in Harry's hair and the bruise his mouth leaves on her inner thigh.

Maybe it's just because she's had a little too much to drink, and it smooths out all the edges, but she gets it this time- what the big deal is, why people do stupid things to chase this feeling, to be this close to someone. She understands now.

She remembers to get up and go pee after, this time, just like Cassandra had told her to. When she gets back, Harry's nearly asleep again, and he watches her with heavy eyelids as she climbs back into his bed.

“It doesn't have to be complicated,” Harry whispers, but Allie doesn't answer him, because he can't promise that, and they both know it.

 

When her alarm goes off, her limbs are all tangled with Harry's.

“Don't,” he mutters, when she starts to extract herself. Her mouth is dry, and her head hurts, but there's a satisfying looseness in her limbs.

“You could just stay,” he says, voice low and soft, while Allie's getting dressed. She glances over her shoulder at him to find him watching her, hardly awake. For a moment, she's tempted. Cassandra knows now, anyway. She could crawl back into bed, bask in his warmth, go home when the sun has fully risen.

“Maybe some other time,” is what she says instead.

“I'm gonna hold you to that, Pressman,” Harry tells her, rolling over onto his side to bury his face into his pillow. Allie smiles to herself and closes the bedroom door as softly as she can when she goes.

It's a mild morning, the sun lighting up the sky a gentle pink as it rises, and Allie takes her time on the walk home, trying to figure out how to bottle the contented feeling that's currently welling in her chest. Things don't feel so bad in the light of a new day.

She's been walking home in the early morning every single day for weeks, and no one but Cassandra is ever up, so she startles, her heart pounding heavy in her chest when she turns the corner into her kitchen and comes face to face with the guard and all their friends. For a full second, the sight of them doesn't even register. They're all looking at her with pale, stricken faces. Allie's stomach drops somewhere around her knees. Instinctively, she looks for Cassandra to explain, but she's not there.

“What?”

Gordie stands up from the kitchen island. He's been crying. “We... It's...”

“Gordie, _what_?” Allie demands, dread creeping up her throat, stealing her breath. Something's wrong, and it's not just the hushed silence and the shaken way they're all looking at each other, she can feel it deep in her bones- fear in a way she's never felt fear before. Every easy breath she's taken this morning feeling like a lie.

“Cassandra-” Gordie chokes on her sister's name. “Someone killed Cassandra.” The silence that follows is the loudest thing Allie's ever heard.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! 
> 
> thanks so much for the comments & love on the previous chapter, I really appreciate it. I've now created a sideblog on tumblr to go with this account, which you can find [here](https://restlessqueenx.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to come hang out with me. I also made a moodboard/aesthetic for this fic if anyone is interested, which you can find [here.](https://restlessqueenx.tumblr.com/post/185125128051/so-soulmates-clark-chimes-in-theres-a) also, for the person who asked, the fic title (and chapter titles) is from Lost by Dermot Kennedy, and I would recommend listening to the Mahogany Session if you want to know the vibe I was feeling from the song. y'all won't know this about me yet, since this is the first work I've posted to this account, but I am known for writing way more than I ever intend to for a fic, and that's already happened here. this was originally going to be a oneshot and I realized pretty quickly it might function better as a multichapter instead. 
> 
> with this chapter I wanted to build a little more of a foundation for Harry & Allie before Harry really fully starts spiraling and Allie gets shoved into a leadership role, so that there's a stronger connection there already to play with, but also a bigger sense of betrayal, so, anyway, that's what I was playing with here! 
> 
> anyway, hope you guys enjoy the update! I cannot promise the next part in 24 hours like this update was, because I had a lot of this already written when I posted the first chapter, but I'm hoping I can get the third Chapter up by Tuesday at the latest.
> 
> oh, also, I know Harry doesn't call Allie by her last name as a nickname in the show, but it felt right to me when I was writing the first chapter & I've just gone with it, hope you can too!


	3. There Can't Be Solace Every Time You Cry

_That's not true_ , had been Allie's first thought after Gordie delivered the news. That couldn't be true, because that would mean Cassandra was dead and that's just... unthinkable. Even now, hovering outside while Gordie conducts a makeshift autopsy of sorts, it doesn't feel real. That's not her sister in there, mostly covered by a sheet. It's just not.

It isn't possible that Cassandra has left this world and nothing else feels different. That's not how it's supposed to work. Cassandra dying is an Earth shattering event, so why does everything around her feel solid, and real, and whole?

She doesn't know what happened, hasn't seen her. Gordie told her it must have happened a little while after prom, because Cassandra was found just outside. Shot. Someone shot her. Someone hated her sister enough to want her dead- Allie can't comprehend that.

“It was probably Harry,” Will had muttered that morning around the kitchen island, then held up his hands defensively when everyone's eyes had turned to him. “What? I'm just saying what everyone is thinking!”

“You really think it was Harry over Campbell?” Bean had responded finally, and Allie had tuned out after that. It wasn't Harry, _she_ knows that- he'd been a little preoccupied, but she doesn't bother to voice it. It feels so unimportant at the moment, such a small piece in the explosive truth, that Cassandra is _dead_ , she's dead and she's not coming back. Allie repeats it to herself, tries to make herself believe it. They just feel like words.

After prom, that's what Gordie said. Had her sister already been dead when Harry was pressing kisses to her hipbones, Allie's fingers tangled his hair? Or was it even earlier than that? Was Cassandra dying while Allie walked home with her shoes in one hand, left her there, just so she didn't have to talk about Harry?

He's going to figure it out, Gordie promises. He's going to find out who killed Cassandra and then... what then? It won't make Cassandra any less dead. It won't make this hollowed out feeling in Allie's chest go away. She's not sure anything can do that.

It's for Gordie, Allie thinks distantly, this is for Gordie- the way he copes. He wants to do something, solve something, change something. She just wants to collapse, curl in on herself, and never move again. She wants to switch places with her sister, like she had when they were little, let Cassandra be the one up here in the sun, sink Allie in the dirt.

If she had a choice, she would never choose to step into Cassandra's shoes. But it doesn't feel like she has a choice. Not with the way Gordie presents it, not with the way everyone looks at her, like maybe if they squint hard enough, they'll see her sister instead. She's never been a leader, never wanted to be one. She and Cassandra might share DNA, but her sister has always owned the spotlight, and Allie's always preferred the sidelines. She says yes because maybe this is her punishment, for living when Cassandra died, for leaving her alone when she shouldn't have. Allie's just so tired.

The first spark of anger ignites when they ask her to take over. The second when arrest Greg Dewey. It's slow, a white hot ember, nestled in her chest, safe behind her ribs, growing with every breath she takes in a world where her sister is not. It would only take a little bit of oxygen to build it into an inferno.

Her friends tiptoe around her, like even the sounds of their voices would be enough to shatter her. Allie wants to yell at them, to tell them she's not so easy to break, but she isn't sure if that's true. She just knows it would feel better than this, this empty space she seems to occupy that everyone is afraid to touch. Her house is never empty, but she's never felt so alone.

She doesn't see Harry, because she doesn't sleep. She can't sleep, no matter how much she wants to, and that's better, because she doesn't want to see him. Even if he hadn't always hated her sister, he's still the thing that was between them, that made Allie leave Cassandra alone. He's who she was with that night. She hasn't figured out how to face the guilt of that yet. She shouldn't have been with Harry, she should have been with Cassandra. But God, she still wishes she could sleep, even if it means waking up under Harry's now familiar comforter. It's been days, now. Two? Three? She doesn't know.

Allie doesn't find out the full extent of Harry's connection to Dewey until right before the trial. Gordie pulls her aside, fingers on her elbow, the most anyone's touched her in days. He looks nervous.

“I'm calling Harry as a witness,” Gordie tells her, soft.

“Okay?” Allie thought that was obvious. Harry's the one who turned Dewey in, of course he'll be called, he had heard Dewey's confession.

“He told me some things... About what happened earlier that night, and it's going to come up in during the questioning and I don't want you to hear it for the first time there.” She realizes then that Gordie's hands are shaking.

“What is it?” Allie's almost getting familiar with the way dread feels with its fingers around her throat.

“Harry and Dewey and some of the guys were hanging out before prom, talking shit, I don't know, no one's been entirely forthcoming with exactly what was said. Some of that I think is people not wanting to get involved, but some of that is probably because they'd all been drinking. Harry was bitching about Cassandra, apparently. He said something stupid about how they'd all be better off if she were dead. Dewey took it seriously. And that's why Dewey confessed to Harry. He thought he'd thank him.”

“Dewey's fucked up,” Allie says because it's the only thing out of all of this that's she's processed and feels sure about. The fact that Harry may or may not be more involved in this whole thing than she had originally realized is a little too big for her let herself fall into right now, not when she needs to sit at the front of the church and not have a breakdown.

“The road from talking about Cassandra to talking about her death, I think it got pretty crude. You know, sexually.” Gordie grimaces. “I just... I can't be sure what pieces of information are going to come out of that conversation at the trial, and I think you should be prepared. From what I've gathered, it was dark shit. I just didn't want you to go into that blind.”

Gordie's acting too nervous, too concerned about this. It clicks, then. “Cassandra told you about Harry, didn't she?”

“What?” Gordie's voice has jumped up an octave. “She didn't, I mean- I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Cassandra told you about me and Harry at prom, didn't she?”

Gordie closes his eyes, and lets out a heavy breath. “Okay, yeah, she did. And I just... I don't know how involved he was, and I don't know how much you know about it, and I'm worried about you,” he admits. “I'm worried about you with him.”

“I'm not with him, Gordie. I'm inconveniently attached, like everyone else experiencing this weird phenomenon, but that's it.” She refuses to call it soulmates like almost everyone else does these days. It's an easy description, but it feels like giving into something she's not ready to give into. Even the idea tastes like betrayal.

“You sure about that?” She's not. Everything about her relationship with Harry is fucking mess. But Gordie doesn't need to know that.

“Just worry about the trial, Gordie. I can handle Harry Bingham.”

 

She doesn't learn anything she didn't already know during the trial. Not really. She watches Harry, while Helena is interrogating him, and he looks terrible, like he hasn't been sleeping either. She doesn't want to care about that- no, she _doesn't_ care about that. She just wonders. She wonders if he hasn't slept much, if any, the past few days either. She wonders if it's possible that she has anything to do with that. Is that connected too?

What Harry admits at the trial isn't as bad as what Gordie told her outside, which makes her wonder. She needs to know. What was said that night that got her sister killed? What did Harry say that made Dewey think he'd appreciate it? Greg Dewey is disturbed, of that, Allie is sure. Greg Dewey is not a good person, and maybe he would have ended up doing something like this anyway, but Harry painted a target on Cassandra's back with whatever he said, and she wants to know exactly what that was. But not here, not in front of everyone. Later, maybe in the morning, if she can sleep.

The trial goes quickly, the verdict comes back as expected. Guilty. Of course he's guilty. There never really was any doubt. He makes a fuss, yells accusations at Campbell, which leaves the crowd shellshocked and murmuring.

“We'll open an investigation into Dewey's claims,” Allie decides, speaking loud enough that everyone can hear, particularly the guard, who have blocked Campbell's exit. “And if any evidence is found to support these accusations, Campbell will be arrested. But not before we have evidence. This isn't a police state. For now, Campbell's free to go.”

The trial might have gone fast, but now it's up to Allie to do the sentencing, and here it is, another thing she didn't ask for, never wanted, but is being left up to her. She hates everything about being in charge. It's not her, it's Cassandra. But they don't have her sister anymore, so Allie will have to do. She thinks it over for two hours, circling back to the same conclusion each time. It feeds that ember of anger in her chest, but she thinks it's their only real option.

“We have to execute him,” Allie announces to her friends. They don't look shocked, which only deepens her belief that they don't have another choice, and never really did. If they had, they would all be expecting her to take it. Everyone's pale and a little drawn, she doesn't think anyone's been sleeping much.

“So, we should probably get that done. I think leaving him waiting around is worse, right?”

No one actually says anything in response, but she thinks they agree with her, because they all start busying themselves. Gordie murmurs something about getting the guns, and Helena reaches for the Bible that's on the kitchen island. Allie knows what her role in all this is. She's just the talking head, so while everyone else downstairs makes preparations to kill a boy, she goes upstairs, locks the bathroom door behind her, climbs into the empty bathtub, and let's herself sob until she can't anymore.

* * *

 

 

Allie thinks she's probably the one who shot Dewey. She thinks, but she doesn't know. She can see it in Luke and Jason's faces. They think it was them too. Gordie says it's better not to know, that was the whole point, but Allie isn't sure she agrees. That's weight on three people, instead of one, but it's not any lighter when you share it. She doesn't feel any better about it. They all killed him, and they'll bear it forever. All three of them, instead of just one.

No one expects Harry to show up at the house, least of all Allie. She's been very carefully not thinking about Harry, or thinking about him as little as possible, since Cassandra died. Everything was complicated before. Now it's just... impossible.

Allie can't talk to Harry. Not here, not in front of anyone, maybe not at all. He's a piece of this story, of why Cassandra's dead, and she still doesn't even know how much.

This is Harry as Allie's never seen Harry, all the cool confidence washed away. He doesn't smile, she thinks his hands are trembling, and he stands there, staring at his feet, head bowed, asking for her time. She won't give it to him. There's a full fire in her chest now, even after the supposed justice they've gotten for Cassandra, and it's too close to burning anyone who comes near.

Allie tells him to leave like it matters, like come morning she won't find herself curled in his bed, close enough to feel his body heat. She tells him to go, because she wants to hate him, thinks she deserves to hate him, but she doesn't. And that's even worse.

 

She wakes up in a familiar bed with a familiar boy. For one split second, she's drowning in a massive wave of relief, and then reality of this situation washes over her and she hates herself for feeling that way. Being here with Harry isn't a relief, it's a fact of life. One that she's going to have to learn to live with, even if she can't bear to look him in the eye.

“Allie,” he says when she sits up, but she refuses to look at him. She can't look at him. She crosses over to her drawer and pulls out a pair of jeans and sweater. She changes right there, aware that if he's got his eyes open, then he's likely watching her. But what does it matter? He's seen her naked more than once. She sits down on the corner of the bed to tie her shoes.

“Allie,” Harry tries again, but she ignores him and stands up instead. She crosses the room and closes the door behind her, all with never once turning her head in his direction. This is what they are now. This is all they can be anymore. And that's on him. He got them here. She hates that she just wants to go back, back to when it was messy and complicated, but not heavy. Everything is too heavy.

Allie gets halfway down the stairs before she changes her mind. Harry has answers that she needs to know, and she's not going to be too much of a coward to go in there and take them. She's going to find out, definitively, how a bunch of idiots talking shit by a pool turned into her sister being murdered.

She slams the door open as she reenters the bedroom, suddenly full of furious energy. Harry hardly even moves. He's on his side, fingers stretched out like he was chasing the heat of where she'd been a few moments before. This time, he doesn't look at her.

“Come on, get up, we need to talk,” Allie demands. Harry sits up, slow and unsteady. He stands for a moment, but then sits back down heavily on the floor next to the bed, instead. He puts his head in his hands.

“Can't,” he says.

“What, are you drunk right now?”

“Something like that,” Harry breathes out, running a hand through his hair.

“Well, sorry, but you don't get to pick the time for this, it's happening now.”

“What is?” He sounds too tired to be interested, kind of distant. It's like talking to someone through a pane of glass.

“You're going to tell me exactly what happened. What did you say, Harry? What _exactly_ did you say that would make Dewey think you actually wanted Cassandra dead?”

Harry's got his knees pulled up to his chest now, his arms around them. He looks small. “I don't want you to know that, Allie.”

“Tough shit. You owe it to me now, because whatever it was, it didn't stay just words. It got my sister killed. And I want to know what it was.”

Harry closes his eyes. “I honestly don't know, okay? I really mean that. I was already drinking, so it's... I don't remember, exactly. The guys were talking shit about Kelly, and I got pissed, said that Kelly was just copying Cassandra or something, like maybe she'd still want me and our relationship if she wasn't so busy listening to what Cassandra had to say. That all the shit we had problems with were because of Cassandra.” He trails off, and when he begins to speak again, this time it's very slow, like he's reaching out for the words, searching for them in his memory. “Jason started joking about if anyone actually thought Cassandra was hot, if we'd fuck her. It got violent, and dark, and shit, and I don't know, Allie. I don't remember exactly who said what I just remember...”

“ _What_?” Her voice is so full of cold fury, even she's a little afraid of herself, afraid of this dark, burning thing that lives in her chest and has been stirring ever since her sister died.

“I remember I said, 'At least she'd be dead. And finally we'd have some quiet.' That's what I said.” He closes his eyes again, leans his head back against the mattress behind him, and Allie stares at his throat, upturned and vulnerable, like he's just given in and is waiting for his death sentence. She thinks she's crying, but she's not sure, she feels numb, frozen all over.

“Here's how it's going to work,” Allie says, hoping he doesn't notice the waver at the end of her sentence. “Neither of us have any say about me waking up here, but that is _all_ it is. We're not friends. We're not anything. And no one else finds out about it. Got it?”

Harry lifts his head, looks at her for a long moment, though he avoids her eyes, and she thinks, for just a second, he's going to say something sarcastic and quippy and just like him. Instead, he just nods once. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Great. And you're going to tell me what you were going to say.”

“What I was going to say when?”

“You came my house, you wanted to say something.”

Harry's lips twist into a wry smile. “It doesn't matter. It didn't then, and it doesn't now.”

“I want to hear it anyway.”

“I didn't mean it.” Harry fully meets her eyes for the first time since she walked into his room. His are wide and dark, pupils blown out, rimmed with red. “I never actually meant it. And I didn't want her dead. If I could take it back, I would. But like I said, it doesn't matter.”

“You're right,” Allie says, standing up, shoulders squared. “That doesn't matter.”

* * *

 

 

She doesn't speak to Harry for a month and half. He doesn't try to speak to her. Allie wakes up in his bed each morning, 5 am sharp. He never complains about her alarm anymore. If he's facing her, he rolls away and doesn't speak. She thinks it should feel better. It's what she asked for, and she's still angry with him, hurt more than she cares to admit. But sitting in his bed in the half morning light, the comforter pooled about her waist, Harry's back to her, she just feels lonely.

Everything is different with Cassandra gone. She's not just anyone's friend these days, and it seeps into every interaction. She and Will don't watch movies on her sofa anymore, they have tense conversations about food distribution. At the end of the town hall meetings, she doesn't get to sit in a pew and wait for Cassandra to finish answering questions, she has to stand up there at the front and pretend she has answers she doesn't. And she never wanted it.

She misses the _real_ before the most, before any of this happened, her mom and her dad, watching Cassandra in school plays, just being Allie. She misses that so much, but it all feels distant. Sometimes, she almost can't remember what that was like, to feel so free and light. When she tries to conjure that now, her brain supplies memories of the town lights flashing past the window of Harry's car during fugitive, of everyone gathered around the kitchen island in her house while Cassandra and Gordie cooked dinner, fast dancing to a slow song with Will, and the way she'd bit back her smile when Harry gave her the hockey trophy. And all of that's gone too. Cassandra dead, Will distant and serious, and Harry... Harry staying right where she put him, at arm's length, packed away on the shelf.

Her alarm went off ten minutes ago, and she's been sitting in Harry's bed ever since, trying to find the willpower to move, thinking about all of the responsibilities she'll have to face when she gets home. She lies back down.

“Are you awake?” Allie finds herself asking, eyes on his ceiling.

“Yeah.” His voice is lower and rougher than she remembers, like he hasn't used it in a long while. She tries to think back to the last time she saw him in public- maybe one of his shifts at the cafeteria or at the last town hall.

“I don't wanna go home,” she admits. It feels good to say out loud. There's so much she never gets to say out loud anymore. Everyone's always looking to her for what to do, expecting answers or some stroke of genius, like she's leading them for any reason other than that her sister died.

“So don't.” He still has his back to her, so she can't see his face, even when she turns her head to look at him. Harry's voice is flat, unemotional.

“What, and just hide out here all day?”

“If that's what you want.”

“Don't you have an opinion on anything?” Allie snaps, annoyed, because she wants... _something_ from him. She has no idea what. She doesn't want to know what.

“I didn't think you wanted my opinion on anything anymore.” And there it is, a tiny spark of emotion, just a taste of Harry's usual snark, though it's tinged with a bitterness Allie hasn't had directed at her by him before.

“I _don't_ _,_ ” she growls, throwing back the comforter and swinging herself out of bed. She's annoyed, but she's not sure if it's with him or herself. She doesn't want to care about what Harry thinks, and she still does; it's infuriating. Slamming the door behind her as she goes isn't as satisfying as it was the last time.

 

Somehow, after that, Allie finds herself talking to him before she leaves in the mornings. It feels like it doesn't count, the things she says while it's still mostly dark. Harry never says much back, which is maybe why she keeps doing it. Partly because there's some compulsive part of her that wants a reaction from him, and partly because even her darkest thoughts don't feel too dark for Harry.

He doesn't say anything about it for weeks. Mostly, he lies there, first turned away from her, and then on his back, where she can see his profile outlined from the little bit of light filtering in his window. Harry pretty much only speaks when she asks him a direct question, but she can tell he's listening, the tension in his jaw shifting depending on what she says.

“Why are you doing this, Allie?” When he finally asks the question, she's been waiting for it for days, ever since he'd stopped keeping his back to her, but she plays dumb anyway.

“What?”

“You know what. Why are you talking to me? What do you _want_?”

She takes a deep breath. “I want to say something really fucked up.” She's wanted to say it for a long time now. She's never had the courage to. It's been on the tip of her tongue since she started talking to him again.

“Okay,” is all he says back.

“I've never been as mad at you as I should be. And that's really selfish of me. I should hate you. I really want to hate you. I think... in the beginning, you were the only person who saw me next to Cassandra and actually liked me better. For real actually thought I was better in some way. No one's ever liked me more than her. And that was okay because she _was_ better than me, she always was, but it made me feel special, that you felt that way, that to someone I was the preferable choice. And... sometimes I think I'm more angry that this whole mess took that away from me than I am for what you said. And that's fucked up.”

She can feel his eyes on her face, but she doesn't turn her head to look at him, she just keeps staring up at the ceiling. Harry's hand slides over hers, fingers twining together. She doesn't pull away. Instead, she lets the words keep spilling out.

“Even now, God, I'm only in charge because I'm as close as anyone can get to her. It's not because anyone actually wants me.” A tear slips from the corner of her eye, slides down her cheek and into her hair. “I can't _say_ that, I can't even say that to anyone, I can't complain about it because she _died_. And what am I complaining about right? I'm not the one who got shot.”

“Except to me.” Harry sounds like he's just figured it all out, like the world just slid into focus for him. Like she answered a question she didn't even understand he had asked.

“What?”

“You can say that to me. You just said it to me. And you know you can, because there's nothing you can say that can have worse consequences than what I said. We both know that.”

He's right. He's the only person she can say that to, and she needs that. She can admit that to herself. So she says something else she's wanted to say, something she's wanted to put a voice to.

“I told Cassandra about us.”

Harry's fingers flex against hers. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Right before prom.” And there's an ugly side to this too. “Do you think I was telling my sister about us at the exact same time that you were saying shit about how we'd all be better off if she were just dead?”

“I don't know.” Harry doesn't sound hurt like she kind of hoped he might, he just sounds unbearably tired. He always just sounds tired. “But if you're gonna hate me for it, Allie, you should just go ahead and hate me. It would be easier. For both of us.”

She doesn't let go of his hand. She wishes she hated him. Something inside her screams that she owes Cassandra hating him. But no matter how hard she's tried, she can't.

“I don't know how to hate you.”

He's quiet for a long time, so long that she's not sure she's even supposed to hear it when he murmurs, “I do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes on changes from canon- 
> 
> first of all, I've cut all the scenes of Will sleeping in Allie's room for two reasons 1) because there wouldn't be much point when they both know he'll wake up with Kelly and 2) because Allie would never agree to it since she's still trying to keep Harry a secret. So yeah, those scenes just really don't fit with the premise of this fic, so they have been cut, however, I would say that the conversations that they've had are still canon, just not anything to do with sharing a room/bed.
> 
> Secondly, I've condensed the timeline right around Cassandra's death down because I wanted the first real conversation Allie and Harry get to have to be after Dewey's trial and execution, which of course means she can't sleep (well, actually, waking up where your soulmate is only happens if you both fall asleep at the same time, which is a rule I've always had in my head, but haven't yet included in the fic & which Allie doesn't know, so technically she COULD sleep and nothing would happen as long as Harry's not also sleeping, but since I haven't gotten into some of the details/rules I have surrounding the concept and will only be exploring that as the characters discover things, I didn't feel it was fair to include it suddenly here) until after the trial is over & she makes a decision (which is clearly supposed to take days in the show) since the world record for staying awake is 11 days (yeah, I looked it up), and I don't expect Allie to be setting any world records, I wanted it to be a plausible amount of time she might actually not sleep. All of that is to say that the timeline for Cassandra dying and then Dewey being found out and his trial/execution may be a bit shorter in the fic than the show. Timeline is the #1 thing that I felt it necessary to mess with while writing this fic in general. 
> 
> Thirdly, I've had Allie choose not to arrest Campbell at this point, unlike in canon. I thought it was a bad move from her in the show, and while the drama that comes out of doing so was fun for the show, it's just a complication that I don't need in this fic. 
> 
> Harry and Allie are both kind of hitting lows in this chapter, and they both have a long way to go to come up from them. I want to assure everyone that this chapter is not intended to imply that Harry's come anywhere close to doing all the work he needs to do to better and redeem himself, but that he is at least very aware of and regrets the mistakes he's made. That doesn't mean he now knows or is any position to be making better decisions in the future, because he's still got a lot of issues to deal with in this fic. 
> 
> Come hang out with me on [tumblr](https://restlessqueenx.tumblr.com/)


	4. I'll Still See You in The Morning

There's something terrible about how she gets used to everything. This isn't their home, this isn't their world, and yet it starts to become easy to wake up every morning and forget to fight it, to forget to keep looking for ways out. She wants to be able to say that she spent every single day in this world kicking and clawing her way toward home. But it's not the truth. It gets easier and easier to let it all just become the new normal.

“I take it there's nothing new from the Committee for Going Home?” Allie asks Gordie, when she hasn't heard anything about it for nearly 3 months. He looks worn down, less polished than she remembers, but she thinks they all do. This has taken a toll on all of them. They aren't kids anymore, not really.

“I don't know what you want me to say, Allie.”

“I want you to say you haven't given up.” Sometimes, she gets this sense of belonging here, and that scares her more than almost anything they've been through.

“We haven't given up,” Gordie says tiredly.

“I want you to mean it.”

Gordie doesn't say anything to that.

 

It's getting colder every day, inching towards Thanksgiving, and increasingly often Allie finds herself waking up curled close to Harry's warmth. It's not like she has control over it, Allie rationalizes, when she wakes up with her head on his chest, his heartbeat steady under her ear. They've just gotten used to each other. It would happen to anyone. It doesn't mean she's figured out how to forgive him for everything. But she also can't help thinking, more and more, as the physical distance between them shrinks, that someday she's going to have to come to terms with the fact that she and Harry will never be nothing to each other.

Sometimes she dreams about him. In her dreams, he smiles- like he had at the beginning of all this, like he had the night of fugitive, or with that ridiculous hairnet on, when she'd beaten him at air hockey. She hasn't seen him smile like that since... she doesn't even know how long, a long time. Maybe since before prom. In her dreams, he calls her Pressman, and she didn't even realize he'd stopped, that she misses it, until the dream version of Harry is laughing, giving her that pleased, sly look, and using her last name like a taunt.

Occasionally, she dreams about the way he'd touched her after prom. He'd traced light fingers over her skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake, taken his time, touched her almost reverently. She'd never felt so close to someone, so completely wrapped up in another human being. Some part of her yearns to recapture that feeling. But it's only because Harry's the only person she's ever been with, Allie rationalizes when she wakes. It's not really about him.

She still talks to him in the mornings. He still hardly ever has anything to say. Allie's not always sure what she tells him in the early dawn light. She doesn't really think about it, about how complicated they are, about who he is, or who they are to each other. She just talks, says the things she can't say any other time. Because he's right, what she says can never have worse consequences than what he's already said. It would be hypocritical of him to judge her.

“Do you ever think about how things would be different if you hadn't said it?” Allie asks him, one morning. She can't seem to walk away from the subject. She knows he doesn't really want to talk about it, but he might, if she asks it of him, because he feels like he owes that to her. Maybe that's not fair of her. She doesn't know anymore.

“No.”

“No?”

“It would just make it worse, in the end. Pretending doesn't make it feel any better.”

“Sometimes I think about it. Cassandra would still be here. I wouldn't be in charge.” _And everything between us might be different_.

Harry's on his back this morning. It's still dark out, but she can see a little of the moonlight reflected in his eyes. “Does it make you feel better?”

“No,” Allie admits. It usually just makes her sad. The quiet swells between them, full of so much that remains unspoken, gaps neither of them know how to bridge. Allie isn't sure if she wants to.

“Sometimes,” he begins, and Allie finds herself holding her breath. Harry has never volunteered anything about himself before. “it's like I'm outside myself, watching myself say and do things I know I shouldn't, and I don't even know why.”

She doesn't know how to answer that, but she feels like she has to. “That doesn't make it okay, Harry.”

“I know,” he says softly. “I know. And then I do it anyway.”

 

With the cold weather of October comes the sudden swelling of Becca's stomach, like her body's only just now realized how pregnant she is. It's a shock to Allie. It makes her wonder how she'd missed any and all the signs of her friend's pregnancy. She's been busy, sure, but not _that_ busy, has she?

“I didn't really want people to know,” Becca explains, a hand placed protectively over the very clear baby bump. “I only told Sam.”

The whole situation terrifies Allie, so she can't imagine how Becca feels. What does it mean to bring a new life into this world that isn't even their own? They aren't even sure how they're going to feed themselves through winter, much less what they'll do if the population starts seriously expanding. Allie hasn't given it any thought. It feels too much like acknowledging that this might be forever.

“It doesn't really matter, though,” Will tells her, after Becca's gone off with Sam and they're alone in the kitchen. “No, I don't mean it like _that_ ,” he says quickly when Allie shoots him a dark look. “I just mean, there are only like... what? 200 of us? Something like that. We don't have enough people to repopulate a planet without some serious inbreeding. Don't they call that like functional extinction or something?”

“I don't know,” Allie responds, a little annoyed. “You know biology and environmental science were never my best subjects. I think you're missing the more time sensitive issue here, Will.” They argue a lot more these days, Allie thinks. She and Will never used to argue. But now it's like they can't stop themselves from snapping at each other, never quite on the same page. She hates it.

“Becca's going to have a _baby_. We have to start figuring out how to take care of babies. Do you think she's going to be last one? What do you think is going to happen when we run out of condoms and prescription birth control? Do you think people are just going to stop having sex?”

“No,” Will says, heavy. Of course they won't. That's an unrealistic expectation.

“We're going to have to work out how maternity leave works. How rations will change. Are we giving paternity leave? At what age do kids have to start contributing? What health needs does a growing child have that we don't? What about vaccines? What about-”

“Allie, slow down.” Will puts a hand over hers on the kitchen island. It's the first time he's touched her in a long while, she realizes. “We can't go too far down that road. We have to take things as they come.”

“We need to be planning.”

“Yeah, planning, not panicking.” It's his tone, and the way his eyes stay steady and sure. For just a minute, Allie thinks everything's going to be okay. But it's just words. And it's not enough. She takes three deep breaths, then turns her hand palm up, to cling to Will's. He's doing his best. They're all doing their best. Allie can't help but think she needs to do more.

“We'll figure it out, yeah?” Will says.

“Yeah,” Allie responds, squeezing his hand once, before she lets go. She's not sure if she's telling the truth or not.

* * *

 

 

She's known for a long time that Harry's struggling. She'd thought it was normal. They're all fucking struggling, right? And Harry has some shit to work through that a lot of them don't. Guilt can be a real bitch, she knows that. Maybe some angry part of her had been comforted by how much of a toll Cassandra's death has seemed to take on him. Maybe that's why she hadn't seen it for what it was.

Allie knows, from first hand experience, that Harry has a habit of wallowing in his bed when he's upset. she doesn't realize that Harry's just not getting out of bed _at all_. It seems normal in the morning, with the early hour that she gets up, that he often hardly stirs, never gets up. It's always been like that. But there's a little kernel of guilt in her chest that says she should have noticed that something changed. Because something's changed.

It's weird, coming in the front door of his house, walking up the stairs with members of the guard on her heels. She's here every day, but only when she's leaving. Harry's room looks different in daylight. It's a mess. And it's not like she didn't know that, because she _did_ , but it had seemed like teenage boy mess, not... whatever this is. She's used to seeing him in the morning, softened by the gentle light, eyes closed, face smoothed out in sleep. Now, he reminds her of a wounded animal, curled in on himself, a vacancy in his eyes that scares her.

“Are you okay?”

“I don't want to see anyone.” There's the slightest waver of vulnerability in his voice, and then, “especially you.” She isn't prepared for that, for the way those last two words make her simultaneously want to crawl into his bed and talk to him like she does in the mornings sometimes, and scream at him to just get up and be okay, that she can't deal with him being so _not okay_.

But she can't do either of those things, definitely can't with the guard hovering. So instead she looks for what Cassandra might say. “You don't have to be ashamed.” It doesn't feel like enough. “I think we know each other pretty well. Unless you forgot about the last time I was in this room.”

That was eight hours ago, when she'd woken up to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against her cheek, and his arm around her. She's never verbally acknowledged their unconsciously growing physical intimacy before.

Harry doesn't move. Everything about him seems dull, worn down at the edges “This is different.”

“I get it. Okay, I get it,” Allie finds herself saying, desperate to pick out the right words. She's not sure she gets it at all. Not like this. “After Cassandra died, I didn't want to do anything. I mean, fuck people. Fuck food. Fuck everything. I wanted to just lay in bed and never get out.”

“And then you got up. Good for you.” This is a Harry she doesn't know how to reach, unmoved, but brittle. It feels as if the wrong move could absolutely shatter him. And that, somehow, in some way, makes her angry. She hates this world, she hates this job, she hates that look in his eyes.

“Because I had no choice. And honestly, neither do you. You have to get back up, because if I let you sink I make it okay for other people to do that too and that's suicide.” She's pushing, prodding, trying to find the thing that will work, the magic words that will bring _anything_ back to his eyes, but he just looks at her, distant and tired and still unmoved.

“You have to get up.” She's aware that the slightest bit of desperation creeps in this time. “You have to get up and get back to work.” It's completely out of impulse that she grasps his wrist, desperate to feel like she's getting through to him in some way. It's the first real reaction she gets out of him, Harrys' fingers curling around her wrist, his eyes drifting closed, like for just a moment he's found some level of peace. It almost makes the next words get stuck in her throat.

“And it's not going to make you feel any better. It's not going to make this suck any less. But it's the rule. It's how we survive.” She can't stay here any longer. Her throat feels too tight, and there's already a sinking feeling of failure in her stomach. She doesn't know how to fix this. Harry watches her pull away from him, but he doesn't fight it, lets go of her when she steps away from the bed. Allie turns her back on him, and takes a fortifying breath. She's not Allie Pressman who wakes up in Harry's bed every morning, she's Allie Pressman, the girl in charge. That's who she has to be right now. When she turns back around, she's found the right mask.

“You don't do your work, your rations get cut in half. No exceptions.” She sees the moment she loses him entirely, between one blink and the next, a single teardrop caught in the light next to his eye, and then Harry's rolling onto his back so he doesn't have to look at her anymore. The tightness in Allie's throat gets exponentially worse. Jason and Shoe filter past her to begin bagging some of Harry's rations, and she stands there for a moment, trying to think of a way she could have done this that wouldn't end with her feeling like she got everything wrong.

In the end, all she can think to say is, “I hope the next time I get a report on you it's that you're sweeping up the cafeteria again. Feel better.” She takes even measured steps as she leaves the room, but by the time she hits the front door, she's running.

 

“I want you to go talk to Harry,” she tells Gordie, arms crossed, hiding the vulnerability she feels in her chest behind the demand. It's not her responsibility to take care of Harry Bingham, but then.... isn't it? Isn't it her responsibility to take care of all of them? She didn't ask for it, but it's hers now. And Harry needs it, whether he can admit it or not. Harry needs it, regardless of the state of her relationship with him. She doesn't know what that is.

“What?” Gordie asks, looking up from his book, face shocked. They haven't talked much lately. Gordie always seems to be closed away with his books and his laptop, always busy, though she rarely knows with what. Maybe he needs her too. But she can't think too long about that. She doesn't have the emotional energy to face that today.

“He's depressed. And not the kind that takes care of itself eventually, like seriously, clinically depressed. You're the only one around I know who understands all the medical textbooks well enough that you might be able to figure out how to help him.”

“You want me to talk to _Harry_? You mean, Harry Bingham, who said we'd be better off without Cassandra? _That_ Harry. You want me to help him?” She's never really seen Gordie angry before. It's not really a big part of his nature, but he's angry now. She gets it, she's angry all the time. She doesn't remember what it's like to not be angry anymore. But she's not leaving here until she gets what she wants from him. Gordie's the one who talked her into doing this, into giving up herself for Cassandra and what Cassandra wanted. So this is on him, too. They wanted her to take up the mantle? be queen? This is what that looks like.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Because he's your soulmate,” the sentence is spat out, an accusation. It should hurt, maybe, but it doesn't.

“No, because what Harry said was stupid and shitty, but it wasn't illegal. And if we stop taking care of people because they've been stupid and shitty, this place is going to fall apart real fast, Gordie.”

“I don't know anything about depression.”

“Then figure it out. That's what you do, right?”

Gordie glares at her, jaw set. “I'll think about it.”

“That wasn't a request,” Allie tells him, cold, and then she turns on her heel and leaves him there.

* * *

 

 

Thanksgiving is a nightmare, though it doesn't start out that way. A group of people pull together a football game, Jason versus Luke. Bean keeps the football team from accidentally blowing up all their turkeys. Gordie even has some news about their situation, and if the term “parallel universe” puts a damper on things, it doesn't last too long. For the most part people seem to be in high spirits. The food tastes good, and there is something undeniably comforting about the ritual aspect of it. They might not _be_ home, but this feels more like home than it has before. That, in and of itself, is something Allie doesn't want to examine too much.

For a while, the evening feels like a success, like just a little bit of time where people can breathe again without the heavy weight of what their lives are now pressing down on their chests. And then Lexie happens. Allie's never known Lexie that well. She was in Cassandra's grade, and Allie thinks she remembers her going out for parts in the school plays that usually went to Cassandra instead. Still, that doesn't seem like enough of a reason for the absolute fury that seems to spill out of Lexie's mouth during the “improv” performance. She doesn't think it accounts for how much Lexie seems to hate her. She never even wanted any of this, and people hate her for it now. It's first time she's really had to face that.

Allie doesn't know what to do- no one seems to. This whole thing is supposed to be fictional, but it's clear that absolutely everyone is aware that it's not. If she acknowledges it as what it is, does that give it power? If she tries to stop it, does she just prove Lexie's point? If she lets it go, does she look weak? She feels frozen, immobile, and her stomach hurts.

It's Will, finally, who interrupts it. Lexie doesn't give it up without a fight, and the illusion is shattered now, so Allie stands up. She doesn't remember what she says to Lexie, not much, she doesn't think, and then she's gone.

That white hot ember in her chest is back, larger than it was before, and she's seething. She'd told them, she'd told all of them- Will, Gordie, Bean, Sam, Grizz, Luke, everyone. She'd told them what this would do to her, who it would make her into, and they hadn't cared. They'd asked her to do this anyway. And they keep telling, over and over, how things are fine, how they'll work out, how there's nothing to be so worried about. They're wrong, and she's right. And none of the rest of them have to carry this weight on her shoulders.

All of this whirls furiously through her head on the walk home, Will and Gordie on her heels. She doesn't have the energy to do more than rage at them for a few moments, her limbs heavy, her stomach in knots. She doesn't like herself like this, but she doesn't know how to be anything else. Sleep is the only escape she's going to get, so she takes it, stomping up the stairs and away from her friends. If she can just sleep, maybe she can just pretend.

 

Allie wakes with her intestines trying to claw their way up her throat. She knows Harry's room well enough now to navigate it, even in the dark, but why does it have to be so big? His bed so far away from his bathroom? Allie smashes her knees on the tile of his bathroom floor as she flings herself over the toilet, what feels like everything she's ever eaten coming back up in spectacular fashion.

By the time she finishes vomiting, all her limbs feel terribly shaky, and she stays like that, leaning over the toilet, and gasping for air.

“Allie?” Harry's voice is throaty. He's leaning against the doorframe, hair sticking up in every direction. Sweatpants, t-shirt, and dark circles. He's not wearing socks, she thinks, absently.

“I'm fine, go away.” And then she's retching over the toilet bowl again, her stomach feeling like it's trying to rip its way out of her body.

Harry doesn't say anything, but instead of listening to her and leaving, he sits down on the floor next to her. Allie closes her eyes and tries to focus on her breathing, think about anything but the roiling in her gut. She's lightheaded, her heart beating too hard. She feels hot all over, prickly, like her skin doesn't belong to her. It takes a moment to register that Harry's fingers are in her hair, and a moment longer for her to come to the realization that he's braiding it back away from her face.

“Thanks?” Allie manages, the word coming out as a pained gasp.

“Little sister, remember?” Harry says by way of explanation. She hadn't remembered. For a moment, she's got the image of a girl, 9 or 10, with dark hair and Harry's brown eyes, and freckles all across the bridge of her nose, then she's coughing again.

“Kitty has a dairy intolerance,” Harry says, and he's rubbing circles on her back, while her arms shake. “She used to sneak ice cream and get ridiculously sick in the middle of the night. It made our mom so mad. Kitty couldn't help herself. No impulse control. I think it might be a Bingham trait.” He falls quiet next to her. His hand is warm through the material of her t-shirt, and she's shivering. She doesn't know when that started. Wasn't she's just too hot? Now, she feels frigid.

“Maybe I should call someone?” Harry suggests, concern lacing his words.

“No.” Allie doesn't want to face anyone, not when she's weak like this. “Can you just talk to me? Distract me?”

“Talk about what?”

She reaches for the first thing she can think of. “What would you be doing for Thanksgiving if we weren't all stuck here?”

Harry's hand stills on her back for a moment, before picking up its previous pattern. “I don't think we were really going to do Thanksgiving this year.”

“What?” She would turn to look at him, but she doesn't want to risk moving her head. It feels dangerous, her stomach momentarily settled, but surely easy to disturb. She focuses on Harry's words and not the pounding in her head. No Thanksgiving at the Bingham house? She gets it with Will, but Harry? It doesn't fit in with the polished, all american, image his mom projects like her life depends on it.

“Yeah, well... It was kind of always my dad's holiday.” Harry's dad. Harry's dad who'd died, almost a year ago now, almost on Thanksgiving. She'd forgotten. Everyone heard about it, no one talked about it. She remembers seeing the obituary in the paper. It hadn't said how he died. No one ever said how he died. She thinks she knows, now.

“Harry...”

“I don't want to talk about that.”

Maybe if she weren't currently heaving her guts out over his toilet she would be able to come up with something adequate to say. In a way, the nausea saves her. She's trembling now, so hard her whole body shakes.

“Allie, I really think-”

“It'll be fine. I'll be fine.” It's the last thing she remembers saying before her consciousness spirals into darkness.

 

When she wakes up, all the lights feel too bright. This isn't home. And this isn't Harry's either. She wants someone to turn the lights off. The world comes back into focus one piece at a time. She can hear talking, low and frantic, someone crying somewhere nearby.

She's at the clinic, Allie realizes eventually, finally able to mentally place the hanging curtain to her right. Allie turns her head slowly, her vision stuttering in and out of focus. Harry's in a chair on the other side of her bed, head in his hands, so she can't see his face. He's still not wearing socks or shoes.

“I dunno,” he's saying to Kelly, who's standing next to him, clipboard in hand. “I wasn't at Thanksgiving.”

Kelly's voice is too quiet for Allie to hear her response.

“She just started throwing up, got all pale and shaky, and then she passed out. I didn't know what else to do.” She drifts again, eyelids drooping, the world going fuzzy around her.

When Allie wakes up the second time, it's to Will's voice, distant, but getting closer.

“...is she?”

“She's over in bed number three. Harry brought her in ten minutes ago.” That's Kelly, Allie's brain supplies. She can't see past her curtain. When she looks to her left, Harry's still in the chair next to the bed, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, eyes turned to the floor.

“Harry brought her in? What was she doing with Harry?”

“I don't know, Will. Does it matter?” She's never heard Kelly sound so tired, Allie thinks absently. Her stomach clenches, and Allie squeezes her eyes closed, grits her teeth, and tries to breathe through it.

“Well-”

“I have to get back to work, just go see her.”

Allie falls in and out of consciousness for she doesn't know how long. Her memories are fragmented. Will's face, and then his hand in hers. Kelly asking her questions that she knows she answers, but can't remember how. She thinks she cries. She thinks she says things, but she has no idea what. At some point, Harry disappears.

Eventually, she comes out of it, the nausea recedes, and her brains stops feeling like a tangled mess of spaghetti. They tell her 7 people had been sick like she was, but everyone's recovering, something in the food they think. Allie's too tired to listen to reports and theories, feeling weak all over. Will stays at her side, a concerned frown a permanent etching on his lips. She thinks he feels guilty, about fighting earlier.

She doesn't know how long it's been, but the sun has risen, filtering softly in through the windows, too warm for Allie's mood. Now that she's functioning nearly like a normal human again, she just wants to get out of here. When she swings her legs out of bed, Will follows.

“I can go to the bathroom by myself, Will. Seriously.” In truth, she just wants some air, some space to breathe. Her stomach is raw, but no longer twisted in excruciation. Her headache is dull, no longer pounding in time with her heart. She feels like crap, but she doesn't feel like she's dying.

She flees the sterile white of the clinic with precise, focused steps. Harry's sitting on the floor in the hallway, his head tipped back against the wall. He doesn't move when she closes the door behind her.

“Hey,” she says, soft. She thought he'd left.

“Hey.”

Allie stands there, chewing on her lip, unsure. She doesn't want to go home. She doesn't want to spend the next 24 hours with her friends hovering over her, watching every single move she makes. The fever and the vomiting are gone, but she feels rent open. Exposed in a way she hasn't been before. There are blue bruises blooming on both her knees.

“Can I come home with you?” In many ways, it's not like it'll make a difference. She intends to climb back in bed, any bed, as soon as possible, so it's where she'll end up. But she doesn't have control over that. This, asking, it's a choice. She can't examine too closely what's behind that. It doesn't have to-

“Yeah.” Harry's looking at her, and he looks almost as exposed as she feels. “But you should probably tell someone.”

“Probably.” She'll text Will once they're away from here, let him know she's safe and just needs space. He won't like it, but hopefully they won't put together a search party to find her either. She's too tired to care as much as she thinks she probably should.

 

They walk back to Harry's house slow, the Fall sunlight painting everything in shades of gold. It's a beautiful day, cool, but sunny. Nothing feels quite real, but maybe that's right because this whole place is a mind fuck. Allie realizes she has no concept of how long she was too sick to think straight.

“What time is it?” she asks.

“A little after 11,” Harry tells her, hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatpants. They're both barefoot. It feels a little like something out of a dream, except in her dreams she doesn't have a lingering headache, and Harry would smile.

It seems like a miracle that they don't encounter anyone in Harry's house. Not in the foyer or on the stairs, the whole place eerily quiet. “People don't really hang around much during the day,” Harry says, when she asks about it, a shrug of his shoulders, like he doesn't care to know more.

It's mostly dark in his room, with the blinds shut and all the lights off. It's still a mess. She wonders if Gordie's actually talked to Harry at all. She reminds herself to ask, just... not now. Right now, she just wants to sleep. It's an unspoken agreement between them as Harry pulls back the comforter on the bed and they crawl into their respective sides.

For a moment, Allie feels like all the air has left the room, and it's too quiet, too still, too much. Then Harry breathes out, something long and exhausted and so utterly understandable even without words that she feels it reverberate under her sternum. And Allie's tired of pretending like his closeness isn't a comfort, so tired of absolutely everything. She doesn't have the energy to lie to herself. So she rolls onto her side and reaches for him. Harry startles when she touches him, then relaxes, his limbs going loose and pliant.

Allie presses her cheek to his chest, listens to his heartbeat. “I'm sorry about your dad,” she whispers. Harry curls an arm over her waist.

“I'm sorry about Cassandra.”

They don't say anything else.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed chapter 4! I said this on my tumblr, but I'll repeat it here- I'm going out of town Saturday-Tuesday so the chapter 5 update will probably be a little slower than the previous ones, since I can't guarantee I'll really get much, if any, writing done over the next few days. Sorry! I'm going to a graduation, so it'll (I think) be a bit of a party, and I just won't have a lot of time to myself & I'm also not planning to bring my laptop, which is my preferred writing method, so, yeah. 
> 
> Also, just a quick note, I don't really edit my fanfic, it mostly comes straight out of my head and gets published as is and usually any “editing” just means that I decided I needed to add additional scenes, rather than doing much to what I've already written (so what you see is generally in its first ever draft format), so if you catch any typos or missing words, etc. please feel free to let me know, I promise I won't be offended or anything.


	5. But I Am Lost This Time

On the coldest day in the first week of December, Allie wakes up on the floor of Harry's bathroom. It's disconcerting, after months of waking up in Harry's bed, to find herself shivering on cold tile, feeling bruised down to her bones from the hard surface. She rolls over, chilled, confused, and irritated. Harry's asleep next to the toilet.

“Fuck.” It's spoken aloud, to no one; Harry doesn't even stir. Out of all the possible differences in this strange routine, this is what she gets stuck with? It sparks that fire in her chest, the anger. It's so easy to light these days. She is so, so sick of this whole world.

“Harry, wake up,” Allie says, loud, annoyed, maybe a little too harsh.

He groans, his face scrunching up in protest. “What?” he mumbles, and she doesn't understand, as she shoves her body into a sitting position, how he's not just as uncomfortable as she is.

“We're in your fucking bathroom.”

“Hhhmm?” And she can see, now that she's no longer squinting against the electric lights in the bathroom, that he looks awful. Considering where they are, she expects he's hungover. Somewhere, inside of her, there's some piece of her that feels bad for him. But right now she's freezing and stiff and so fucking over this whole situation.

“Why couldn't it have been _my bed_ , if it was going to be somewhere different? Why the fuck do I always have to end up where _you_ are? Could I just once, not have to get up too early, somewhere that I don't belong, and play out my morning every morning like it's fucking Groundhog's Day or something?!”

“What does Groundhog's Day have to do with anything?” Harry asks, eyes still half closed. He hasn't moved much.

“The _movie_ , Harry!” Allie is fuming, everything coalescing into this outburst, how unfair this whole goddamn situation is. She didn't ask for this, any of this, and this is just another reminder of how out of control of her own life she is.

“I think it's just because I fall asleep before you do,” Harry says simply, eyes still mostly closed, like this is a fact he's always known, and not the answer to a mystery that has been plaguing her for months.

“ _What?_ ”

“I fall asleep earlier than you, I think. Nothing seems to happen until we're both asleep, and since you seem to go to bed after me, I think you're the one who moves.”

“And you never thought to share this information!”

“It's just a theory, fuck, can you stop yelling my head hurts enough as it is.”

“A _theory!_ You mean, the thing that we could have tested and I might not have to get up so fucking early all the time?!”

“Look,” Harry says, and she realizes his words are slightly slurred at the ends. She thinks he might still be a little drunk. “You're the one who cares about hiding this. I don't give a fuck if people know. I haven't told anybody because you don't want me to. But if I wake up in _your_ bed, I'm not getting up at 5 am to sneak out.”

“Fuck you, Harry,” Allie snaps. Now is not the time, she thinks. Not for her, when she can hardly feel her fingers, and not for him, when he's clearly still intoxicated from whatever he did the night before. Allie makes a mental note to talk to Gordie about Harry again, even though she's annoyed with him. That's her job, right? Even so, she's petty enough that doesn't offer to help him to his bed. Instead, she gets up and just goes.

She sees Kelly on the walk home, but pretends she doesn't, and Kelly doesn't try to talk to her. Allie doesn't know if Harry's ever told her about them, he says he hasn't, but if he has, she's kept it to herself. If Will knew, Allie would know. Sometimes, she's so tired of hiding it, she thinks it doesn't matter anymore. But then she thinks it will always matter.

 

Allie doesn't mean to be a bitch to Lexie specifically. It's just... She's had a rough morning, waking on Harry's floor, walking home way too early, the weight of everything just pressing down on her. And Lexie hasn't exactly been the nicest person to Allie as of late, so it's a little too easy to feed that fiery monster in her chest and blow Lexie and her concerns off. It feels good, in a way she knows it shouldn't, but doesn't care. At the time, it doesn't feel like as big of a mistake as it turns out being.

When she arrives home, there are too many people in her house. Jason and Clark are playing video games; Gordie's in the kitchen doing something with the oven, and Will and Grizz are bent over a map on the kitchen island, heads together. She doesn't want to see any of them. She just wants some tea and then a nap. But of course, things are never that simple.

“Hey, Allie,” Grizz greets, waving her over. “We're trying to plan the route to search for land to farm. We've spent the last week with some volunteers mapping out what's just beyond the city perimeter, but it's all woods. We found a lake, though.” He points it out to her, a blue blob in a sea of green. Whoever's been drawing the maps isn't half bad. She eyes the lake, wondering if there's some way for it to be useful to them. It's actually pretty near Harry's house, she finds herself thinking.

The oven timer chimes and Gordie goes to retrieve what turns out to be a tray of pizza bagels. He offers it to her, but Allie waves it away. She just really wants some tea. A headache is starting to bloom in her right temple. Will and Gordie are supposed to be working on figuring out exactly what poisoned everyone at Thanksgiving, but she hasn't seen any progress. It eats at her. People are scared, and with good reason. But fear is just as toxic as poison in the food. It can't lead to anything good. Grizz is still talking, but she's lost the train of the conversation now.

“Has anyone made tea?” Allie asks, taking a long breath in an attempt to shake off her morning.

“I think we're out,” Gordie tells her reluctantly. His smile is thin, strained at the edges. He's stopped shaving every morning, scruff on his cheeks. Once again, she wonders if he's okay.

“Pizza bagel?” Will offers, holding the tray out to her.

“I don't want a pizza bagel, I want a goddamn cup of tea and a nap!” Allie snaps, her voice much louder than she intended it. There's a moment of ringing silence; Allie's headache throbs.

“We'll take some pizza bagels,” Clark says.

Will, Gordie, and Grizz are watching her warily. She knows her temper has been on a particularly short leash lately. She feels like she spends every waking moment worrying about the future, about how they're going to feed themselves, how she's going to deal with the dissent Lexie's Thanksgiving outburst and the subsequent poisoning has stirred up. She feels worn to the bone. It's all catching up to her.

“I'm sorry,” Allie grits out, every muscle in her body fighting her attempts to relax. “I'm just stressed. And in a bad mood.”

“Maybe you just need to get laid,” Jason says casually from his spot on the sofa, mouth full of Gordie's pizza bagels.

“Great, yeah, I'll keep that in mind,” she answers sarcastically. Sometimes she just wants to strangle the members of the guard. Usually they're harmless, easy to shake off. Right now...

“I can help you out, if you want,” Clark offers without looking up from the tv.

 _I somehow highly doubt that_ , Allie's about to say, but Jason interrupts first.

“What about Gwen?”

Clark shrugs. “Broke up. S'not a big deal.” Allie doesn't believe that for a second. She also doesn't have the energy to care. “Anyway, Allie, you let me know, yeah?”

“I think I'll pass.”

Jason snorts, amused. “I can't believe you even tried it, man.”

“Hey!” Clark defends himself. “It's a good offer. Who else is she gonna sleep with?” For a moment, all Allie can think of is her fingers curled into Harry's hair.

“ _Regardless_ ,” Allie says loudly, talking over the bickering, “how about you both stop discussing my sex life like it's any of your business?” Her headache is practically unbearable now.

“What sex life?” Clark mutters under his breath, and Allie flips him off on her way up the stairs.

* * *

 

 

Friday finds Harry in an uncharacteristically good mood. She's hardly seen him out of his bedroom in weeks (she doesn't think her Thanksgiving visit to the clinic counts), but when she wakes, he's already up, folding laundry.

“What are you doing?” Allie mumbles, trying to shake the sound of her alarm and the persistent headache she's had for days. She's more tired than ever.

“Cleaning,” Harry says, and shoots her the Harry Bingham smile that she _definitely_ hasn't seen in weeks. The room looks a lot better too, and Allie wonders how long he's been up. There's something about this sudden switch in demeanor that's setting off alarm bells in her head, but they're distant, foggy, hidden under a layer of exhaustion and other concerns.

“At five in the morning?”

“Yep.” He pops the p at the end of the word a little, and if Allie weren't so groggy she might question it more. As it is, she'll take cheerful Harry any day over the void, fragile version of him that she can't get out of his bed.

Allie sits up, pushing her hair back from her face and grimacing when her fingers get caught in the tangles. It's still dark out, and she's incredibly tempted to go back to sleep, but she knows if she does she'll regret it later. She can't stay here, though. If she stays, she'll curl back up under the reassuring weight of Harry's comforter and it'll take a miracle to move her. She doesn't want to go home either. She's supposed to meet with Will and Gordie about the poisoning today.

“Let's go for a walk,” she finds herself saying, the words out of her mouth before she has a chance to think too much about it.

Harry blinks at her. “I'm sorry, what was that? You're offering to be seen in public with me, Pressman?”

Allie rolls her eyes at him, tries not to smile at the return of her nickname. “Well, I was thinking about checking out this lake Grizz found, it's not far from here, so we'd be in the _woods_ , which isn't exactly in public, but sure. I've been meaning to check it out for a couple of days, see if we could use it for anything.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Harry says, but he doesn't look offended. “Let's go then.”

 

It takes about twenty minutes to get everything sorted out. They need flashlights, since it's still dark out, and Allie hasn't added a winter coat to her stash of clothes at Harry's, so she ends up wrapping a throw blanket around her shoulders like a shawl. Harry shoves a couple of granola bars in his coat pockets, and then they're off, the slightest bit of sunlight peeking over the horizon.

The walk would be easier in full daylight. It takes them extra time to pick their way through the underbrush, flashlights trained firmly on the ground.

“You sure you know where we're going?” Harry questions, about fifteen minutes in.

“More or less.”

He snorts. “I feel very reassured.”

It's a lake. How easy can it be to miss? Grizz had said “lake” not “pond” or “pool” so Allie's fairly certain that denotes something sizable. She's just starting to wonder if this was a bad idea, shivering a little under her blanket, when the trees open up and there it is- a smooth expanse of water, so large she can't see the other side.

They both stop walking. Allie's breath is caught in her throat. There's something about seeing something _new_ after months and months of the exact same, that's struck her speechless. There's a world out here, even if it's not _their_ world.

Harry ends up finding a large, flat rock a couple hundred yards away, one that they scramble up and sit with their feet dangling over the edge, watching the sunrise reflected in the lake. It's still cold, but getting warmer, with the morning sun. Something about it, this place, how alone they are, it carries the same sort of feeling Allie gets when she wakes up in his bed and the world is still hazy and she can say anything. She's not sure exactly when it happened, but Harry's gone all quiet, his shoulders curving in on themselves a little, like he's trying to make himself smaller than he is. He looks like the version of Harry that won't get out of bed again.

As it so often seems to happen with him, she doesn't know what she's going to say until she's saying it. “Sometimes, I go days without thinking about what happened to Cassandra, and then I hate myself for it. It's not like I forget... I just... don't think about it. Like it's just become another piece of history, a fact of life, a part of the background of living in this place. I hate that.” She doesn't want Cassandra to fade into memory, but it's been five months, and she already is. “Is it like that with your dad?” They aren't looking at each other. The sky is lit up, orange, and red, and a little gold.

“Kind of,” he says, finally. “My dad... He was that guy that everyone loved and wanted to be around and no one really liked. Powerful, charming, everything they tell you a man's supposed to be. I worshiped him. Even after... You know, my family was never anything like yours. Do you remember what you told me about your mom? How she'd cook dinner for you every night? I can't remember my mom ever cooking anything. I thought about it after you said that, but I couldn't think of a single time. We didn't eat together, not even when I was little. When I was a kid, my nanny cooked for me. The past few years, we just all went our separate ways, ordered what we wanted. My mom was always working. My dad was always working.  
“I remember, back when I was really young, he would grill out sometimes on the weekends, but then Mom caught him having an affair with a coworker and it was like... They didn't want to get divorced, because it looked bad. They didn't want Kitty to know about it. But we were never really a family anymore, not after that. No family dinners for the Bingham's. No movie nights, no long talks about feelings, no family weekend trips. Our parents bought us things. That's what they did instead of being there, or spending time with us. They bought us things, anything we wanted. And now no one owns anything and... what do I have left? What does that mean now?”

Allie chews on her bottom lip, trying to absorb everything he just said, fit it into who she knows him to be, placing pieces that make up his picture. “Things aren't love, Harry. Just because you don't get to have those things anymore doesn't mean anything.”

“Yeah.” There's something in his tone she can't place. “That's an easier concept to say you understand than it is to buy into.”

Something in her chest hurts. “When did you get all deep?” Allie asks, forcing the lightness into her voice. It's becoming increasingly clear to her that Harry's a mess of open wounds. She wants to fix that, feels compelled by her personality, her inability to let things go, to not overthink, to have to insert herself when she sees a problem that's going unaddressed, but she's not sure how. She's not sure it's her place to, that she even could.

“We should go,” is Harry's response, clearing his throat and pushing to his feet, not meeting her eyes. She doesn't think he meant to share so much. “Someone will be wondering where you are.”

He's right, but it doesn't make her feel any better. She wishes she had a day, just one, in which no one expects anything of her. “Right.”

There's a fallen tree at the base of their rock, and Allie steps onto it, balancing like she would have as a little kid, her arms stretched out, the blanket streaming behind her. She makes it to the end and is turning around to face him when her foot slips. She doesn't fall, but she stumbles, landing badly on her left ankle, her foot twisted under her. For a moment, the rush of adrenaline overpowers everything else and then-

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she gasps, hopping on one foot, trying to breathe through the pain shooting up her ankle.

“Come on, sit down.” Harry grasps her elbow and helps her into a sitting position on the log, her ankle stuck out awkwardly in front of her. “That's what you get for showing off,” he tells her, but there's genuine concern in his voice too.

The pain is receding slightly, but it still makes her curse under her breath, low and a little watery, as she rolls her ankle experimentally in front of her. Not broken, maybe not even sprained, but definitely painful.

“Let me look.” Harry's stooped over next to her, lifting her heel into his hand, as he rolls her pant leg up slightly. It doesn't look like anything. Harry presses his fingers experimentally into her ankle, feeling for broken bones.

“Seems mostly okay.” Like he knows. Allie suspects Harry knows about as much about first aid as he does about cooking. Still, he's trying. It lights up something warm in Allie's stomach.

“Harry.” He looks at her, his fingers still wrapped gently around her ankle. She doesn't know what she's supposed to feel when she looks at him anymore. But she knows what she wants. Maybe that's good enough- for this, anyway.

Harry's very still when she leans forward and kisses him, just a soft, chaste thing. When she pulls back, his eyes are dark, but unsure. They watch each other for a few quiet moments, breathing the same air, saying nothing. He doesn't move away, so Allie kisses him again, harder this time, and he kisses her back, a hand at her jaw and another at her back. When he pulls away, he stays close, eyes closed, his forehead brushing hers.

“Why?” he asks, the question a rumble in his chest under her hand.

“I just need to blow off some steam.” She doesn't mean it to sound so callous, but it does, even to her ears. She expects him to pull away, hurt or offended, but it hardly even seems to register with Harry.

“No. Why me? After everything...”

It's a valid question. The truth is, because he's the only one she's ever been with like this. Because she's afraid of the way this could change her relationship with anyone else she could ask. Because she knows how he'll touch her, and that he'll listen to what she says. Allie gives him a half truth. “Because I don't know how to trust anyone else with this.”

“You think you can trust me?” he asks, very quiet. She almost doesn't hear.

“With this.”

She watches him process the words, sees the moment that the furrow in his brow disappears. “Okay,” is all he says. Harry doesn't question anything else.

 

If you'd asked where she was going to be at 8 am this morning the night before, Allie never would have told you having sex with Harry on a blanket in the woods. She absolutely would never have been able to envision a path that would have led her here. And yet... She's done a lot of things in the last few months that she never would have been able to see coming. This is just one of them.

They don't linger long, too cold to comfortably stay unclothed, even just partially, for any period of time. With the sweat drying on her skin, there are immediately shivers creeping up Allie's spine. She sits up and reaches for her bra. In her peripheral vision she can see Harry getting up, buttoning his pants.

“Just to be clear,” Allie says slowly, reality setting in. “This whole thing, it's just sex.”

Harry's back is to her, pulling his shirt over his head. “Don't worry,” she can't read his tone at all, “I vividly remember the 'we're not friends' speech.”

If she thought he were genuinely trying to play the victim in the whole Cassandra situation, she would call him out on it right here right now, but... She knows she hasn't been exactly fair to him. Allie's painfully aware how hot and cold she's run. But... that's about her, as much as it's about him, and she'd be justified hating him, but she'd still probably owe him clarity. She has none to give yet. So she doesn't say anything at all, as she turns away from him and tugs her shirt over her head, runs her fingers through her hair.

“Here.” When she turns around, Harry's holding his coat out with one hand, mouth settled into a determined sort of frown.

“What?”

“That blanket is pretty much just a dirty sheet now. Take it.”

“What about you?”

“I run warm.” She doesn't know if he's telling the truth or not, but she takes the coat anyway. It's too big for her, the sleeves reaching past her fingertips, but it's warm. She gets to her feet slowly, a little kernel of guilt in her stomach, though she's not sure which, on many things, it's for. Allie hisses involuntarily when she puts weight on her ankle.

“You shouldn't walk on that,” Harry says, folding up the blanket into a precise square.

“An astute observation. I'll just call an uber, then.” she snarks at him. She's a little out of sorts, after... everything. This wasn't the plan, none of this was part of the plan, but here she is again, throwing out all her roadmaps where Harry is concerned.

“Always so difficult, Pressman,” Harry's voice has just barely captured that teasing edge that used to always be present with her. “I was offering to help.”

 

Harry ends up giving her a piggyback ride through the woods. Allie suspects they look ridiculous, her in his too big coat, arms wrapped around his neck, his hooked under her legs. It's slow going, even more so than it had been in the dark.

“Remind me to start working out again,” Harry mutters as they finally near the edge of the woods. His breathing is bit heavier than normal, and she thinks he's probably glad he's not wearing the coat. Everything about this is absurd. Absolutely everything. And Allie can't help it, she starts laughing. She isn't even sure what's funny, just that even after months and months, everything in the world is still completely out of place, and she has to laugh at it. She tightens her grip around Harry's neck, giggling uncontrollably. This might be hysteria, but she doesn't care. She can just see the edge of Harry's smile.

“What, are you going to join one of New Ham's many team sports?” she asks, cheeks hurting from smiling so wide, a little manic.

“I never really was a big team sports kind of guy.”

“No, you just buddied up with all of them, instead.”

“They weren't really my friends.” It's solemn, a resigned statement of fact that wipes the smile of Allie's face. It's not like he's wrong. He hung out with them all the time at school, but she hasn't seen a single one of them act the slightest bit concerned about his absence from their lives, about what's happened with him. Not like her friends are with her. They ask a lot of her, but they give a lot too. She's not sure she's appreciated that enough.

“I think this is your stop,” Harry's words interrupt her wandering mind. It's a shock to find herself at the bottom of the steps to her own porch. She hadn't noticed them getting here. Before she has a chance to unwrap herself from Harry and ease herself to her feet, the front door opens. Will steps onto the porch.

“I think I sprained my ankle,” Allie says, before either of the boys can speak. She doesn't know what exactly will happen if she lets them lead the conversation, but she doesn't think she wants to find out. They're not, and have never been, particularly fond of each other, and considering Will's her best friend and she literally had sex with Harry less than half an hour ago, she's not sure there's a way this ends without her running some serious interference and someone saying something she absolutely does not want them to say.

“Right.” Will's looking at them in a calculating way that makes her nervous. Harry seems to sense this, because he lets her down slowly and steps away from her, like putting some distance between them will change anything about how weird this is.

“Help me inside?” she directs the question at Will. There's just the slightest hesitation on his part before he scrambles down the stairs and to her side.

“What happened?” he asks, low, like Harry isn't even there.

“Nothing, I was being stupid, slipped.” Allie responds, letting Will take her elbow and lead her to the stairs, leaning on him heavily. She glances back over her shoulder to where Harry's already backing away, not a word said.

“Thanks for the ride.” Allie internally winces as she registers the unintentional double meaning of her words. If the way Harry's lips quirk slightly to one side, he didn't miss it either.

“Anytime,” Harry responds, and Allie's pretty sure he's very much not talking about the walk home. He's gone before she can think of any sort of response, or worse, try to clarify.

“What's going on with you and Harry?” Will finally asks, once they've made it inside.

“Nothing,” Allie says. It tastes like the lie it is.

* * *

 

 

She spends the weekend resting her ankle and arguing with her friends about whether or not to hold elections. Gordie had insisted she keep her foot elevated and her ankle iced, and had even found a book to show him how to do a proper ankle wrap, though Jason had suggested just asking a sophomore named Mark who had apparently been a student athletic trainer for the football team. Gordie had ignored him and done it himself, even bringing Allie some low grade prescription painkillers. They leave her a little fuzzy, but they take the edge off, and that's enough.

“We have to have elections,” she argues. It's something she's been thinking about for a while now. There's too much discontent, she's asking too much of people. Inevitably they will stop listening to her. She never had power because anyone really wanted her to, she's had it because she inherited it from her sister. That's not democracy. At the end of the day, they had ultimately chosen Cassandra. If Allie's going to keep things running, if it's really all going to be up to her, they have to choose her too. Bean seems on board. Neither Will or Gordie like it.

“It's too much of a risk,” Will argues, arms crossed like he's protecting himself from something. “What if you don't win and we get stuck with someone incompetent just because they know how to stir things up?”

“Do you think it's better to sit around and wait for the inevitable rebellion?”

“I think 'rebellion' is a little strong of a word.”

“What else would you call it? People are pissed. People are scared. No one ever wanted me to do this job.” Gordie opens his mouth to speak, but Allie holds up a hand to stop him before he can. “No one, except you guys,” she amends. “And that was about Cassandra.”

“You're good at it though,” Will says. He would say that even if she wasn't, but she thinks he's being honest. She thinks maybe she actually is kind of good at this, even though she wouldn't have chosen it. There's something incredibly satisfying about that, that she's better at this job than she really has any right to be.

“That's not the point.” It's not like this is what Allie wants either. Bean gives her a fortifying smile from across the room. It's not about what she wants, none of this has ever been about what she wants. This is about doing things right- doing what Cassandra would have.

“I don't like it, but she's right.” Gordie says, finally. Allie wonders if he can read her thoughts on her face, because he adds, “It's what Cassandra would have done.”

Will exhales heavily. “Yeah.” Because there's no arguing with that. They all know it's the truth. But Allie can't help some rebellious part of herself that she shoves deep, that she's ashamed to admit exists, that asks why everything still always has to be about Cassandra.

 

Allie can't quite comprehend it when she sees Harry's name on the sign up sheet for the election. Harry doesn't want to be mayor. He's hardly making it out of bed most days. Nothing about his name staring up at her from the piece of paper clutched in her hand makes sense. And wouldn't he have said something? Just two hours ago he'd been blinking sleepily at her while she'd gotten dressed, showing no signs he had any plans to oppose her politically. If he really doesn't like the way she's running things, he's had more opportunities than anyone to bring it up to her. But she can't find another explanation for his name on the list.

“You should meet with him,” Gordie says, over his cup of tea. Allie raises her eyebrows at him. Out of everyone, he's the only one who should know how absurdly unnecessary that is.

“ _Publicly_ ,” Gordie says. “It'll look good. Give him the rules for the debate, look civil with each other. The good publicity won't hurt.” She doesn't really want to do that, but Gordie's right. She's the one with the power, so it makes her look good to be so amicable with her opponent. No one knows the truth about her and Harry, so this is the move that makes sense.

“Okay,” Allie agrees, “if you think that's what's best.” She rolls her ankle as she speaks, giving herself something else to focus on. It's almost better. Most of the swelling is gone.

“Take Shoe with you,” Gordie tells her. What he doesn't say is- Look competent. Look in charge. Project the image of a leader. It's all pieces on a chessboard, and this is the part Allie hates the most. The maneuvering. She just wants to get shit done.

She thinks there's some part of her that believes she'll meet with Harry and he'll explain and it will clear things up. That it will be some sort of mistake. Allie doesn't really believe he means it, which is why the hurt doesn't settle in until after.

 

Harry's upright, when she gets to the coffee shop, which is more than she can say about the last couple of times she's seen him, but he still looks exhausted. Maybe more so than usual. He's been low the past couple of days, and despite her best efforts, she's hardly gotten more than a blank look when she's talked to him.

“You're late,” he says, and that's definitely Harry, just the edge of teasing in his voice. This is how he is with her when he's up, out of his melancholy. And that's more disconcerting than if he'd been cold. It doesn't feel like he's putting on a show. He's really here. He's really doing this.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she says, pulling the debate guidelines out of her pocket. “It's been a little busy.” She doesn't know what else to say, doesn't know what else to do but to play this out like the charade it feels like this is.  
“Mmm.”

“These are the rules of the debate.” She lays the paper flat on the table in front of them. “Pretty standard.”

“Yeah, I'm sure.” Harry folds the paper over without looking at it. He's uncomfortable, she thinks, a slight agitation in the curve of his shoulders and the way he moves his hands. “It's all fine.”

“You sure?” she doesn't understand this. She doesn't understand what he's doing. It's the Harry she knows and one she doesn't all mixed together.

“Yeah, I'm good.” He doesn't say it with much conviction and she doesn't believe it. Allie takes the paper back, shoves it into her pocket, thinking, trying to figure out how to handle this side of him. She goes for direct, or as direct as she can be in public. She's never been much good at subtlety.

“Are you okay?”

There's something in his eyes that warms immediately when she asks this. “I'm fine.”

“Because the last time I saw you-”

“I know, I know. I'm... I'm better.” He's almost there, the Harry she knows, the one that she can reach. The one she's learned through truths whispered in the dark. He's just a little blurry at the edges, like she's looking at him through a pane of glass.

“Sometimes I wonder if there's another version of this world where we're friends.”

“Yeah?” A kind of half smile appears. She's hooked him with it, this idea she finds herself toying with more than she'd ever admit. It's not manipulative if she means it, right?

“Yeah.” She's smiling without meaning to. “Where we want the same thing for people. Work together. Look out for each other. You know?” She doesn't realize how much she wants that to be this world until she's said it. She wants that. She thinks she's been considering maybe they could have that for a while now.

His voice is impossibly soft. “Anything's possible, I guess.”

“Why are you running Harry?” She doesn't want to sound like she's begging, but that's how she feels. She wants him to tell her, to explain this all, why he's suddenly so far away. She sees it in his eyes, that she loses him.

“We don't agree on some stuff. It seems like the right thing to do.” It's the first thing he's said to her that rings false. She's missing something; she knows she is. Allie's been putting together the puzzle pieces of Harry Bingham for months now, and she's finally started to get a pretty clear picture. This doesn't fit. There's something she's not seeing, that he won't say.

“Does it?” Allie hears the vulnerability in her voice. She didn't mean for it to be there. Harry looks away, down at the table, no words for her. There's something a little shaken about him, the way he stands when he pushes out of his chair and to his feet. Allie thinks he's just going to walk out then, but he hesitates.

“Let me know if you work it out.”

“What?”

“About the other world. It seems like a nice place.” He touches her shoulder for a moment before he goes, and she doesn't watch him leave. It already feels like another world, because this morning she woke up listening to his heartbeat, and right now she's never felt like he's further away.

 

Allie's angry by the time she gets Harry alone. The situation has had time to really settle, and it just feels worse, the longer she has with it. She storms into his house, a little before dinner, and finds him alone in his kitchen, clutching a mug of something that's steaming and looking completely drained. Normally, it might move her. Right now, she's too pissed off. She's lucky there's no else around to wonder what she's doing here.

“What the hell is going on Harry?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” He won't meet her eyes. He looks pale, and if she didn't personally know how much time he spends in bed, she'd think he wasn't sleeping enough.

“That's weak, Harry.” A muscle in his jaw jumps. His knee is bouncing.

“You said anyone could sign up to run.”

“You know that's not what this is about.” She's not yelling, but it's a close thing. “Why are you doing this? I want the _truth_.”

“I _have_ to,” Harry says, an undercurrent of urgency running through his voice, his fingers drumming anxiously on the countertop. He doesn't seem to realize he's doing it.

“You don't! I don't understand why you're acting like-”

“I _have_ to, Allie. I don't have a choice.” Not once, since she's walked into this kitchen, has he looked her in the face. There's something wrong here, she just doesn't know what.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Look, it's better if you don't know.” He's jittery, different than she's used to. There's a frantic sort of energy radiating from him.

“Bullshit.”

“It's the truth.”

“You act like I wouldn't know when you're being sincere about something,” Allie snaps. There's a wall he's put up, suddenly, between them, and she doesn't understand it.

“I can't talk about it,” he says firmly, eyes hard with conviction. “I have to do this.”

Allie sets her jaw. “Alright then.” She's going to leave it at that, but he's lit that fire up in her chest again and she can't help but take shot where she sees it, lash out a little. She pauses with her hand on the door handle before she leaves. “Just so you know, that other world is never going to exist.”

* * *

 

 

Allie goes out to the lake alone, sits on that big rock with her feet dangling, like she had with Harry. She wants to make sense of all this. She wants, for once, to not feel angry. She feels responsible for New Ham, for seeing this through, but there's some part of her, a part she can only admit to herself out here where there's no one to judge her, that wants to lose. If she loses the election, all of this pressure goes away. She gets to just be Allie again. It would be so easy to give into.

But that seems selfish, no matter how tempting. She's learned a lot, doing this job, and anyone who takes over for her _now_ , with winter really closing in and the food supply slowly dwindling, they'll hit a learning curve at a bad time. She can't really think why anyone would want that. She doesn't believe Harry wants it. She can't in good conscious allow him to take on a job he neither wants nor is prepared for. But she might not have a choice.

She sits there for a long time, long enough that the sun starts to get low in the sky and she isn't surprised when her phone chimes with an incoming text. Someone has probably noticed her extended absence. It's a little annoying, but it's also sweet, that they all worry so much. Allie pulls her phone out of her coat pocket, fumbling it a little because her hands have gotten so cold.

 _You need to come to the clinic_. Allie stares at the text from Gordie, heart leaping up into her throat. He should know better than to do this to her, to send her a text like that and not explain.

 _What's going on?_ She texts back, but he still hasn't answered by the time she makes it out of the woods. The clinic is only three streets over and around a corner. She doesn't run. If anyone sees her, she doesn't want them to think anything's wrong. She doesn't know what's wrong.

Gordie meets her just inside the doors, clearly shaken.

“What is it?” she demands, and for a moment it feels so terribly like Cassandra all over again.

“Harry's.... I don't know. I think he OD'd on something.”

“He... What?” The information doesn't seem to sink in, just settle on the surface of her skin like film, oily and ugly.

“I don't know,” Gordie runs a hand through his hair. “I don't _know_. Mickey found him. He was hardly breathing, wouldn't wake up.” He continues quickly before Allie can ask. “He's alive. But I don't know what he's on. He isn't breathing right and I don't know how to fix that. Kelly's in there right now.”

“We should go in.” Allie feels a strange sort of calm all over, like she's experiencing this suddenly from a great distance.

“I don't even know what to research.” Gordie doesn't seem to hear her. “I don't know if it was sedatives or opioids, or... what else is there?” And Allie knows this is what he hates the most, feeling like there's nothing to do, because it's something they have in common. Gordie's the guy with answers, or at least the ability to look for them. Right now he looks lost.

“I never talked to him like you asked.” There's shame scrawled all over his face. “I meant to, but I was still pissed off and I didn't and maybe if I had...”

“It's not your fault,” she says firmly. It might be hers. She's replaying every interaction she can remember having with him. Was he high, and she just didn't notice? How many times had she thought he seemed off? How many times had she pushed it to the back of her mind because she had other things to worry about? She'd known enough was wrong to ask for Gordie's help, but hadn't bothered to make sure he actually helped.

Kelly's sitting in one of the chairs beside Harry's bed, her eyes on the ground, unfocused and unseeing. She doesn't look up when Allie takes the seat next to her. They've never had much to talk about, Allie's not sure she really knows her, despite all the connections they now share.

She tries not to look too long at Harry. He's tucked into the hospital bed. He just looks like he's sleeping, like he is every morning when she wakes next to him, but his skin is pale and the dark circles under his eyes seem violent to her. If she weren't looking for it, she'd think he wasn't breathing at all. Her last words to him had been so cruel; she didn't think she'd regret them this fast. _He'll wake up_ , she tells herself.

“Do you have any idea what he's been on?” Allie asks, tentative, but focused. She doesn't know how bad this is, she doesn't know if they have time to waste, figuring this out.

Kelly sniffs, and there are tears in her eyes when she looks up. “I don't know. He used to steal his mom's Xanax sometimes, but it didn't... I mean, it didn't really feel like a big deal at the time, you know? I took some too. And... I thought he might be on something... different. Something that made him kind of... euphoric? I asked him about it and he denied it. I didn't think it was this bad.”

“Where would he be getting anything anyway? We have the pharmacy locked up and guarded,” Allie says, frustrated.

“We didn't always,” Gordie responds, from where he's standing at the foot of the bed. “People took stuff. I'm sure someone's dealing, if not multiple someone's.” She can see the gears turning in Gordie's head again, relief at having a defined problem to work through. “Probably opioids, if it's not the same sort of reaction he had to Xanax, but he's not up enough for it to be stimulants. They're the most common prescription addiction, I think.” Gordie walks away as he's talking, over to the counter to bend over a book that Allie can't see the title of.

“I just thought...” Kelly swallows hard and looks away from both of them. “You know he has a panic disorder.”

“What?” Allie asks. She didn't know that. She tries to think back, over the months she's spent with Harry in her life. He's never told her that, and she's definitely never witnessed it.

“Yeah, since he was little. Chronic panic attacks. Apparently they kind of came out of nowhere. But he was doing a lot better the last few years, until his dad... you know. I guess... He's always been kind of ashamed of it. I thought he just didn't want me to know they'd gotten bad again, or something. When he wouldn't be straight with me about how he was feeling, I just thought it was that. And if he was on something, I told myself it was just something to help keep him calm.”

“I think we should give him Naloxone,” Gordie says from his position at the counter. “If he doesn't have opioids in his system, this says it shouldn't really do much, but if he does... I think he needs it. He might be mixing things, I don't know, but I think this is our best shot.”

“Do it.” Allie makes the call. Someone has to. They don't have time to second guess themselves. And she's gotten pretty used to making the tough decisions recently.

“There should be some in one of the emergency kits in the back.”

“I'll get it,” Kelly volunteers, looking relieved to have something to do. Allie tunes out the sudden bustle as Gordie and Kelly start organizing. Gordie says something about starting an IV. Allie feels a little like she's outside of this all. The world doesn't seem to be moving at quite the right frame rate, everything a little too slow.

“Is this how I'm supposed to do this?” she distantly hears Kelly ask.

“You know I have no idea what I'm doing either, right?”

Allie closes her eyes and counts to ten, clings to that distant feeling. It might be the only thing keeping her going.

“Okay,” Gordie says, and Allie opens her eyes. Harry doesn't look any different, except now he's got an IV hooked up to one arm. It's very quiet. They stand there, in a line, like sentinels, waiting. Allie feels as if she's hardly breathing herself, watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Gordie's clutching the textbook like a lifeline.

“It says to tell him to take deep breaths. He might be able to hear you, even if he can't respond.”

Kelly leans in close to the bed. “Harry, take a deep breath.” She repeats the instruction a couple of times, voice soft and coaxing. For a few moments, nothing happens. And then, almost as if it's nothing, Harry's breathing deepens. It's one second to the next, the shift so smooth, she almost doesn't believe it.

Allie's limbs feel weak with sudden relief. She sinks into one of the chairs by the bed, her heart threatening to beat right out of her chest. _Not now,_ she tells herself, _you can't feel it yet_. She needs to hold onto that distance a little longer.

“That's good,” Gordie says. “That means it's working. I need to read about dosages and try to figure out what's next.” He wanders away, looking dazed.

Kelly takes the seat next to Allie, twisting what looks like some extra IV tubing between her fingers nervously. “I guess we just wait.”

“Yeah.” Allie feels very heavy, like she couldn't stand from this chair even if she wanted to. She doesn't realize her hands are shaking until Kelly discards the tubing and grasps her hands instead.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I-” but she doesn't have an explanation for her. Not one that doesn't take a whole lot of energy. Like always, everything about her and Harry is complicated.

“It's okay,” Kelly says, soft. “I know he's your soulmate. Or whatever it is.” Allie blinks at her, startled. “He didn't tell me. It's just kind of obvious, if you know what to look for.” She smiles a little. “Neither of you are as subtle as you think.”

“Right...” Allie isn't sure how to respond to that. Kelly squeezes her hand, and then they fall silent. It doesn't feel like there's much left to talk about.

She doesn't know how long they sit there like that, waiting. Inside the clinic, with the fluorescent lights and the curtains drawn, it feels like time doesn't pass at all. They both startle when Kelly's phone chimes, too loud in the hush of the room.

“It's Will,” Kelly murmurs, staring down at her phone. Allie nods to the door.

“Go. You should get some rest. There's no point in all of us staying up and exhausting ourselves all at once. And Gordie's here if something happens.”

Kelly's smile is thin, but genuine. “I'll be back,” she promises. And then Allie's alone with Harry, watching his chest rise and fall, and his eyelids flicker. She tries to think of nothing, of the reflection of the sky on the lake, the way the morning light filters into his bedroom, anything but where they are now and why.

She's not sure exactly when it happens. She just knows that at some point she looks away, and when she looks back at him, Harry's eyes are open.

“Hey,” Allie says, at a loss for how this is supposed to go.

“Hey.” Harry's eyes slide over his surroundings, going in and out of focus, disoriented. The situation seems to dawn on him slowly, a flicker of emotion passing over his face, but he doesn't say anything else.

“How are you feeling?”

“Nauseous.”

“Yeah... Gordie said that might be a side effect. It's a good sign, though. It means we gave you the right thing.”

“Well, that's a relief.” And Allie fights the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes at his dry tone. She's not sure if they're from relief or guilt. There's too much of both at war inside of her.

“I'm really sorry,” she says, swallowing through the lump in her throat. _Not yet. Please, not yet._

He looks at her, an inkling of something startled in his eyes, though his words are slow, like molasses. “For what?”

“For not noticing.” Allie thinks this small fact will probably haunt her forever. “Whatever was going on between us, I should have noticed.”

Harry closes his eyes. “I didn't want you to.” She thinks he's gone back to sleep, but then he murmurs. “It wasn't your problem.”

“Harry.” She tries to get a grasp on what she wants to say, but can't think of how to do it. How do you have this conversation with someone? How does she do this with _Harry?_

“I know what you're thinking,” he says, his voice colored by exhaustion. “I wasn't trying kill myself. I just... didn't have a good handle on how much I'd taken already, I guess.”

“Where'd you get it?” Allie asks, so she knows where to direct the slow burn of fury that's been creeping up her throat.

He doesn't open his eyes. “Like I said, it's better if you don't know.”

Allie's spine stiffens at the words. She distinctly remembers the last time he said them. “This has something to do with the election? Why you're running?” That missing puzzle piece starts to slide into place. Harry doesn't want it, he never has, and she knew that. But someone else does. Someone else who can hold a prescription drug addiction over Harry's head and say “jump.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

She wants to tell him it doesn't matter what he wants, but she bites back the words, swallows them down. He doesn't have to tell her, but she's going to find out. If she'd just been paying more attention, she might have seen this earlier.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt.” Gordie's at the edge of the curtain, looking apologetic. The exhaustion is starting to show at the corners of his eyes. “I've been reading, I have some things I want to check.”

“Right,” Allie stands up. “I'll, um, give you guys some privacy.” She can't look at Harry before she goes, afraid that if she looks at him, that wall she's built between herself and reality might shatter. She escapes to the hallway, sinks to the floor, and presses her forehead to her knees, taking deep breaths. This is how Kelly finds her.

“Gordie texted, said he's awake?” Kelly doesn't comment on the state she's found Allie in.

“Yeah.” It's starting to sink in, the fact that someone did know about this, someone knew what was happening with Harry well enough to use it against him. It's easy to grasp onto the anger. It feels good, so much better than feeling scared and guilty and worried. She sinks into it.

“Whoever is supplying him, it's who wants him to be mayor.” Allie swallows. “They're using it to control him.”

“Campbell.”

“What?”

“Campbell signed him up to run for mayor. I saw it myself.” Kelly's jaw is set. “I should have known. I mean, I knew he was using Harry, but I just thought he got inside his head, not...”

There's something satisfying about having a direction for the fire inside her. And now she has something she can do too. She knows what Campbell is. She should have done something about it a long time ago.

“We have to keep this quiet,” Allie says, and that burning anger is everywhere now, right down in her bones.

“You don't want to tell people?” Kelly's brow is furrowed, confused. “Campbell's dangerous.”

“No, not yet.” Allie's voice comes out so cold, that edge of fury sharpened and ready to cut. “I don't want him to have a chance to see what's coming for him.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> Thanks so much for all your great feedback!
> 
> Remember what I said about how I always end up writing way more than I mean to? This is exactly what I mean. I have absolutely no self control.
> 
> I think this fic is looking like it'll wrap up with either chapter 6 or 7 (depending on how much more I write than I mean to), though I'm not 100% sure yet. My goal was always mostly to rewrite the season with a twist & as you can see, we're getting pretty close to the end of season 1. I do intend to take the fic past the end of the season slightly, but not too much. I want to leave Allie and Harry in a place that feels emotionally satisfying for you guys as the readers (and shows real growth for them both individually and together), and like it could be an end (so that it feels like a real end to the fic), but that also leaves room for me to potentially continue this concept if there's another season (though I would likely do so in sequel format, rather than extending this fic, so it could still stand on its own), so that's the plan. 
> 
> So... the physical aspect of Harry and Allie's relationship has, um.... recovered? I guess you could say? Kind of? Still working on the emotional bit. They always were a bit backwards though, weren't they?
> 
> To be clear, any backstory I add/expand on for Harry, I'm trying to keep with contextual evidence from the show. I'm not trying to write anything specifically with the goal to make him more sympathetic so that readers will feel bad for him and just forgive him (Harry's doing a lot of self reflection to try to figure out how to move forward, and if he deserves/earns forgiveness it will be because of how he changes himself and owns up to his mistakes, not because he's had a lot of shit in his past or because he's going through a lot right now). His dad's death is obviously canon (though we know little about it aside from timing), and I built a father figure for Harry that I felt might be what fits in with what we've seen of his family life and Harry's starting point (his privilege, the way he talks to the other guys, what he said by the pool, etc. etc. That doesn't come from nowhere). The HC that Harry may suffer from panic attacks comes from the 1x01 scene, and as someone who has experienced panic attacks personally, it was something I wanted to include and not just brush off. I wrote the overdose for him because it's something I spent the whole second half of the show worrying about, since no one seemed to be catching on to Harry's abuse of prescription medication (and I don't trust Campbell knows enough of what he's doing that he couldn't accidentally give Harry too much at once, or even mix medications) and since the scene at the dance in the show where Harry tries to get Campbell to give him more, I've been concerned that Harry doesn't have a good judge of what he can and can't handle. 
> 
> Anyway, we're quickly closing in on the end of the season! I don't know how that happened! 
> 
> p.s. I don't specifically mention it, but it is my HC that Allie has an IUD, and anyway, let me take a moment to promote safe sex- please be careful and use precautions. Never forget that fictional sex is not like real sex and just because characters in a fic do not always discuss methods of birth control that doesn't mean you shouldn't! If I were rewriting this fic, I probably would have mentioned Allie's IUD during the first chapter when she first gets together with Harry, establishing that they are both aware of it, and therefore making it much less necessary for other scenes to touch on that, but 20/20 hindsight, right? Also, that being said, IUDs are not protection against STDs and STIs. I am 100% in support of practicing safe and responsible sex! Okay, sorry for the PSA.


	6. Will We Last the Night?

How had she not known? That's all she can think about, staring at the linoleum floors in the clinic as she waits for Gordie to come back from checking on Harry so they can work on their plan. Whatever the hell that's going to be. How had she not known Harry had sunk this far? How had she not known Campbell was slipping into the cracks in Harry's psyche and filling them with poison? Campbell's always had a talent for bringing out the worst in people and Harry... Harry's vulnerable. She knows that, maybe better than almost anyone. She should have seen this coming.

How easy had it been? How easy had they all let it become? No friends, with maybe the exception of Kelly, a strained, battered relationship at best. No support. No one really trying to help, or looking out for him, not even her. She could have done more. She knew he was drowning, and she'd told Gordie to throw him a rope, but she hadn't stuck around to make sure he did it. She hadn't done enough. That's a fact. She'd let her personal turmoil get in the way of what she owed him as a leader. She can't think about the other side of it all, about this undefined, hazy thing between them, to what she might have owed him due to that. She can't let herself think about that.

None of them have slept enough, is what Allie thinks instead, the moment Gordie steps into the hall. He's visibly exhausted, his shoulders stooped, his eyes bloodshot. And they don't have time to rest. Not just yet.

“So... Campbell, huh?” Gordie says, slow.

“Kelly told you.”

“Yeah.”

“I should have realized. I mean, we all knew, right? He pointed a gun at Cassandra the very first night we were here and then we just... forgot what he's capable of? Sam told us. We didn't do anything. Dewey told us. We didn't do anything. Helena told me Elle's scared of him, and we didn't fucking do anything. We can't leave him alone anymore, he's too dangerous.”

“So we have him arrested. Now.”

She's been thinking about this. Campbell's done plenty to deserve it, but he's done it quietly. It's all he said, she said. When they take him down, it has to stick.

“No.” Allie straightens her shoulders, it has to be like this. “He has to trap himself. Publicly. For now, we play along.”

Gordie shakes his head. “ _How_ do we play along? We have his mayoral candidate hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed.”

Allie chews the inside of her lip nervously. There's really only one option. “Can you get Harry on his feet? Just through the debate?”

“You can't be serious.”

“If Harry doesn't show, it'll give our hand away.”

“Allie, he could have _died_ last night.” _Last night_. Is it morning already? She's lost track of time. That means she only a day and half to get ready for the debate, to figure out a plan. Everything feels the same in here. But that's not the point, it doesn't matter. What matters right now is figuring out Campbell's play, countering it. She has to outmaneuver him, and that terrifies her; to be quite honest, he terrifies her. Allie knows how much she's asking, of Harry, of all of them.

“Look, he just has to show up, say whatever bullshit thing Campbell talked him into saying. He's not going win. But that's what worries me, okay? Campbell has to know he's not going to win, right? What's his play here? If we try to stop this right now, we're playing blind. We can't afford to do that.”

Gordie runs his hands through his hair. “And then what?”

“Campbell doesn't know that we know about Harry. We have an inside man. You really don't want to use that?”

“We don't have time to get Harry through detoxing before he has to go face Campbell with that plan,” Gordie says. “He could be in withdrawal for more than a week. Not to mention we'll have to monitor him to make sure he doesn't just start using again. He's not up for this, Allie.”

“Oh, now you care,” she snaps. Gordie's right. She knows he's right, but she doesn't know what else to do. She needs Harry's help to pull this off, whether he's up for it or not. Campbell is a danger to all of them. She has to do something.

“We'll ask him. He'll have a choice,” she tells Gordie, but it comes out in a way that makes her think she's trying to convince herself.

“Like that matters! Of course he's going to say yes. He's addicted to that shit, Allie. If he says yes he can keep taking it.”

“We know about it now,” Allie's stomach turns over. She wonders if there's any way to look at this where she isn't almost as bad as her cousin. “We'll make sure he's okay.”

Gordie shakes his head. “That's cold, Allie.”

“We'll keep him safe,” she insists. “Then we'll help him through it. But we have to get rid Campbell first. For everyone. Harry's not safe as long as Campbell's walking around either.”

“This is fucked up.”

“This whole place is fucked up.” Allie swallows the guilt that's resting on the back of her tongue. “Give me a better plan, Gordie. Tell me how to do this without him.”

Gordie's silence tells her what she already knows- that there isn't one.

 

Harry's asleep when she goes to talk to him about Campbell. There's more color in his cheeks than the last time she saw him, but he still looks worn. She should wake him, because time is a sensitive issue here, but she can't quite bring herself to. Instead, she sits in the chair by his bed and waits, going over and over every scenario she can imagine for how this all plays out, picking apart everything she knows about Campbell.

“Hi.” She doesn't realize Harry's woken up until his voice pulls her out of her own head. The way he's looking at her is liquid, soft. She wants to brush away the hair that's hanging in his eyes, wants to crawl into the bed next to him, fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. She can't do any of those things. She has to be strong.

“I know it was Campbell.”

Harry's eyes turn hard. “Leave it alone, Allie.”

“I can't.”

“You have to. Please.” There's a pleading note in Harry's voice. “He's... He'll come after you.”

“He already is,” Allie snaps, frustrated. Can't Harry see that? “That's what this whole thing _is_. He's coming after me right now with this fucking election. He's using you to do it.”

“And now you know, so now he can't, because I don't think anyone is going to want _me_ once they find out about this, so I-”

“No.” Allie interrupts. “No one is finding out about this.”

“What?”

“I want you to go through with the debate. Campbell's playing for something else, this isn't his power move. I want to know what is, and I don't want him to know I'm looking. He thinks he owns you, which puts you in a unique position to make sure he doesn't get what he wants.”

Harry's brow is furrowed in confusion. It's a lot, she realizes, that she's putting on him right now. He's probably still nauseous. He's in a hospital bed, for fuck's sake. But... she's come this far. And if it gets Campbell out of all their lives permanently, then it's worth it, isn't it?

“Gordie said I have to stay here for a week, that he's making me detox.” Harry says this slowly, like he's trying to work everything out.

“We've talked about it. If we want to fool Campbell, we don't have time for that now.” Allie watches the meaning of her words settle over Harry, the way his eyes shift in understanding. She knows that he's aware that she's putting taking out Campbell over his immediate health. And she can't tell how he feels about it. He doesn't say anything.

“Here's how it's going to work,” Allie says, hoping her voice comes out steady and authoritative. “You are going to hand over _anything_ Campbell gives you to Gordie. We don't know what that is, and we can't trust he won't intentionally overdose you if he catches wind of anything. Gordie will keep you out of withdrawal while we're doing this, but you have to honest about it. Do you understand?”

Harry watches her for a long moment. “Yeah.”

“You don't have to do this, you know. I won't make you.”

“Oh, I get to choose?” There's something a little bit mocking in Harry's tone, but she takes the question seriously.

“Of course you get to choose. I know it's fucked up, asking you to do this. I _know_ that, okay? If thought there was a better way, I'd take it. I just... I'm really scared of what will happen if things go the way he wants them to.” She wouldn't admit this to anyone else, but that's the thing with her and Harry, they tell each other things they're normally afraid to say out loud.

Harry's frowning, not looking at her. “You're going to do something... about Campbell, I mean. Even if I don't help you.” Sometimes she forgets how well he's gotten to know her.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Then it's not a choice.” He meets her eyes. “I'll do it.”

* * *

 

 

Allie's only been home for an hour and half from the clinic, exhaustion dragging at her bones, when Elle shows up. She's one of the last people Allie would have expected to see, and one of the most intriguing. If this is an angle Campbell's playing, she hasn't quite pieced together how. Elle's got a pink backpack with her and a look in her eyes that Allie finds unsettling. Elle's here for a reason, that much is clear.

The absolute last thing she expects is for Elle to confess to poisoning everyone at Thanksgiving. She tries to make it sink in and stick, but her tired mind rejects the idea. Elle might not really be close to anyone but Campbell, but she's never seemed to have a problem with anyone either. And this girl, the girl sitting in front of Allie right now, practically begging to be arrested, she doesn't feel like someone who wants to hurt people.

She doesn't believe her. She can't believe her. This has to be Campbell. It has to be, right? He brings out the worst in people. He pushes, just a little here and there, works his fingers into the knots and unravels people from the inside out. Campbell would relish the panic and paranoia that a poisoning causes. Elle? Allie doesn't see it.

She pushes too hard, probably. Allie knows she can be too blunt, too abrasive, too... everything. There's something rattled about Elle. And Allie doesn't go easy on her. She's too tired to handle her delicately, the way she probably should. Cassandra could have, but she's not her sister, and after months and months, she's done trying to be.

“I just needed him to stop!” Elle bursts out, finally, and it's not so much the words, but the dead look in her eyes when Allie asks for an explanation that makes things click into place. They both know who Campbell is. Why didn't it occur to her before that he might do more than just manipulate Elle?

Elle doesn't answer, when Allie asks if he's hurting her, but she doesn't have to. It's answer enough, the way she breaks down then. She'd just go, Elle says, if she could, leave this whole place and Campbell behind, run away from him and what he's done, but there's nowhere to run to.

The anger in her chest burns hot. Allie wishes Elle's plan had worked, wishes Campbell had just eaten that stupid pie and died and left them all alone. And for one moment, she thinks, this is it. She can arrest him now, but as soon as she says it, she knows she can't. They don't have any proof he's done anything wrong. And Elle can make accusations, but Campbell knows what _she_ did, even if she didn't mean to. If everyone finds out Elle's the poisoner, it won't matter that the only one she wanted to hurt was Campbell. People will be angry, they'll want her punished. Elle's right, the only thing she can do right now is arrest her quietly, hope no one realizes what's going on.

“Okay, I'll try to figure it out,” Allie tells her. Another piece on the chessboard, another play against her cousin. She doesn't know what she's doing anymore. This whole things has gotten so complicated so fast. This will draw his attention, Allie knows that. He'll come looking for Elle, just like he'd come looking for Harry if they didn't send him back, but she can't send Elle back to Campbell, not knowing what she knows now. Not with her crying and begging to stay.

She'll figure it out. She has to. When she's done with Campbell, no one will need to run away from him anymore.

 

Allie stays on her feet long enough to help Elle get settled into Cassandra's bedroom, which is now really Bean's bedroom, but Allie still can't think of it that way. Bean will be going with Grizz in the morning, so Elle will have the room to herself shortly. They wrestle the sheets onto the air mattress she and Cassandra used to camp out on in the backyard in the summer when they were little, steal pillows from the hall closet, and extra blankets off of Allie and Gordie's beds. It's not perfect, but it will do. Elle doesn't talk much, and Allie's happy to leave her alone once they're done.

She feels like the walking dead, can't remember the last time she slept. She's afraid to sleep now. If she sleeps, she might wake up at Harry's. Now, more than ever, no one can know about her and Harry. Any association she has with him could put his position with Campbell at risk. But God, she wants to sleep.

Allie's sitting on her bed, staring out the window and into the woods behind the house, trying to convince herself to get up, move, do anything to keep herself from sinking back into the pillows and taking a nap, when someone knocks and startles her out of her stupor. Grizz is standing in the open doorway of her bedroom, hand still up and resting on the doorframe from where he had knocked.

“Hey.” He's supposed to be leaving in the morning, something that seems, suddenly, like terrible timing. He's someone that Allie trusts implicitly. She could use him here. But he has to go- it'll look too suspicious if she calls off his search party now. And even if it didn't, it will make her look weak, like someone who can't keep her promises.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Grizz says, his voice low and soft. It takes him a moment to meet her eyes. Allie's stomach clenches. Not something else. Not now. She feels like one more thing could break her.

“Close the door,” is what she says. Grizz does so, taking the few steps needed to cross the room and sit down next to her on the bed. She doesn't ask, she waits for him to say it, using the extra few breaths to steady herself.

“I need you to send Sam with me tomorrow.”

“What?” Allie's mind blanks out for a moment. That makes no sense. “He can't go. Becca's going to give birth literally any day now. Why do you need him anyway?” Grizz stares at his hands, and she can't really see his face past the sweep of his hair that's fallen out from behind his ear.

“If he doesn't come with us, either I'm waking up back here, or he'll end up there anyway.” Grizz meets her eyes. “And we aren't ready for people to know about it yet.”

It's not what she was expecting. “Oh.”

They're both quiet for several seconds, Allie trying to work out if she should have known this, should have seen it somehow. She doesn't trust her own ability to read people anymore, not after what's just happened with Harry and Elle and Campbell. She's been missing too much.

“Okay, I'll figure something out.” She seems to be saying things like this a lot lately. She's not sure if any of it is true. How is she supposed to explain sending Sam away to Becca? How is she supposed to explain that to _anyone_? But it's for Grizz and Sam, who have been nothing but supportive and there for her. So she'll have to make those words true, somehow.

“Thanks, Allie,” he murmurs, resting a gentle hand on her knee and giving it a light squeeze. Grizz stands up slow, shuffles to the door.

“I have one too,” Allie says, soft, as he's reaching for the doorknob. He stops, turns around, and she can tell he doesn't understand by the look on his face.

“What?”

“A soulmate.”

She doesn't really know why she's told him that. Grizz's expression shifts infinitesimally. There's something like relief in his eyes, or understanding. Maybe that's why she's told him. She isn't sure. They look at each other for a few moments, and then Grizz nods once, the corners of his lips tilting up in a smile. He shuts the door behind him when he leaves.

* * *

 

 

Allie's expecting it when Campbell shows up. In fact, she thought he'd be around sooner. He doesn't come until morning and Allie hasn't slept. She was too afraid to risk it, with Harry fresh out of the clinic and the debate fast approaching. She'll have to later, she won't have a choice. She's been waiting for Campbell since yesterday evening, parked out in the living room with a mug of tea and a book she hasn't read more than two sentences of.

She's waiting for him, so it doesn't take her long to realize when he arrives, Clark stopping him at the door. It's the first time in a long while that Allie thinks she's seen Campbell genuinely distressed. This isn't part of his plan. The problem is, it was never part of hers, either. This whole thing could ultimately sink either of them, and she has no idea who it's going to be yet.

“Where is she? I want to see Elle.” If Allie didn't know better, she'd think Campbell really cares. But looking at him now, she sees it as something else. He's upset, because to him Elle is something he owns, and Allie's taken her away.

“It's not gonna happen.”

“What are you charging her with?”

“It's none of your business.” She can see the anger in his eyes. He doesn't like other people touching his things.

“Now you're just arresting people because you feel like it? If this is some kind of fucked up game-”

“I don't play games.” Allie isn't sure where the lie comes from, but that's what it is. She doesn't _want_ to play games, but he started this, and that's what it is. They're both saying what they have to say, moving pieces here and there. The problem is, she can't help but feel this is still Campbell's game, and she's stuck playing by his rules. She needs something else, a paradigm shift.

“You're not pretending like this is the white house? He's a pretend bodyguard. After the election this all goes away.” She didn't expect him to admit he has anything to do with it, to be honest. He seems... rattled, in a way she's not used to seeing him.

“I'm not afraid of you.” It's another lie. “Or Harry.” At least that part is the truth.

“You should be.” There's murder in Campbell's eyes; she knows he means it. But as he walks away, she can't help but feel, for the first time, that maybe Campbell doesn't have as much control as he thinks he does.

He pauses, throws his parting words over his shoulder at her. “People are over you, Allie.”

It scares her more than his threat did, because she thinks he might be right. Her grip is slipping, everything's slipping, and she doesn't know what happens when she can't hold on anymore.

 

The speech Harry gives at the debate was written by Campbell. Allie thinks this is exceedingly obvious. But maybe it's just because she knows to look for it. Or maybe it's just because she knows Harry well enough to know it doesn't sound like him. Sure, it's got the bones of things he said when he was still arguing with Cassandra, but it's too slick. It doesn't have any of his cynical humor. She sits through it, tries to look interested, but not too interested. It's written to appeal to the worst in people, Campbell's speciality, but she doesn't think it's really a threat. People might not really like her, they might resent that she makes them work, makes them behave like adults because there aren't any actual adults around, but at the end of the day, they know that it's necessary. They know that without order, things would be a lot worse. She hopes, anyway.

Her intention is to keep things simple, focus on how much they need each other, need to work together. Allie thinks she mostly succeeds, though she finds herself sliding in other thoughts, about privilege and growth and sharing that she hadn't planned on. She knows it's because she feels the need to counter the driving ideology behind Harry's speech. Those aren't his words, and she doesn't think he believes that anymore, but it is the same ideas he tried to push, and the anger that grew out of them are what got Cassandra killed. She can't let that fester. She can't let Campbell bring that back. So she has to counter it. She has to remind them how little the world truly owes them. If she gets to say so herself, she does a pretty good job.

The thing she doesn't count on is Lexie. Judging by Campbell's face, he didn't count on Lexie either. Allie doesn't like her, but she'll give credit where credit is due; Lexie arrives like a summer storm, sudden, torrential, and a little out of control. She tears down Harry's argument in seconds, rips it out, root and stem with her flood of harsh words and anger. If she stopped there, maybe things would be different, but she doesn't.

Lexie finishes with Harry, and then comes after Allie, barreling through her time limit, taking the truth and angling it just so in order to make Allie look as bad as possible. She knows she should be panicking, because Lexie is making everything so much more complicated, but Allie feels herself drifting, detached, as if she's watching this happen to someone else. She thinks, even as Lexie's words burn through the church, about how much easier it is to destroy than build, and how Lexie hasn't seemed to have figured that out yet. But she might get a chance to discover it.

Elle's the nail in the coffin. Allie knows it as soon as the question comes out of Lexie's mouth and she can't help but wonder... how does she know about that? Campbell had looked as shocked to see Lexie as anyone else, but maybe he isn't. Maybe _this_ is his power play. Sacrifice Harry, destroy Allie, puppet Lexie. If it's his plan, it's a good one.

And Allie's still thinking this, still cold and calm up in her seat at the front of the church when Lexie walks out, and people begin to follow her. Lexie can win the election; she can make all sorts of promises, but Allie doesn't think she'll like being responsible for everyone and everything half as much as she's enjoyed this little performance. And that's what it is, Lexie is performing. She's putting on a show and getting the audience to clap, but what happens when the lights come up and they all realize it wasn't real? What then?

 

Allie walks home, still feeling distant from herself, and she's aware of Gordie and Will, walking a few steps behind her and worrying, but she can't seem to feel too much about that. The bigger issue is still Campbell, she thinks. She still doesn't understand what he has and hasn't wanted to have happen, and she's not sure if she's being paranoid, wondering if Lexie is a part of that. Regardless, Lexie is angry and naïve, but she's not evil. Campbell... She really thinks he may be.

Her feelings don't come back full force until she's standing at her window and Will's got his arms braced on the back of one of the chairs to the kitchen island and he's saying, “You should have talked to me.”

“About what?” And she honestly means it as a question, because there are so many things he doesn't know right now, things that he'll probably be furious at her for keeping from him, but he scoffs like she should know the answer to that because he hasn't figured out how much she's left out of their conversations recently.

“About what? About Elle.”

“I didn't think I needed your permission to make decisions.” Allie hasn't slept in two days. Across town, Harry's drug addiction is being carefully fed by Gordie so that he can keep an eye on Campbell for her. Elle's upstairs, hiding. At some point, Allie's going to have to face Becca and try to explain why she sent Sam away with Grizz when Becca's about to go into labor. Lexie's tearing Allie's plans to shreds. Allie can't even sleep in her own bed without putting Harry and herself at risk, and Will... Will doesn't know anything about any of it, because she hasn't told him shit. Maybe she should have. She has no idea where to start.

“Yeah, well, you could have used some help with this one. It just blew up in your face. Everything's at risk now. Everything we've worked for. Lexie has _no idea_ what she's doing. Nobody even knows what she stands for.” Will's frustrated with her, and he's scared. And he doesn't even know the half of it. If this is how he feels now, what will telling the truth do to him?

“Elle asked me for help, she needed my protection. What else was I supposed to do?” Allie asks.

“Talk to me. You want a political partner? Treat me like one, that's what I'm here for.”

“Maybe that's not what I need from you.” She turns around then, away from the window, and finally looks at him. He's her best friend. He's been her best friend for years, but standing here in this kitchen, facing him, her secrets like a gulf between them, all she can think is that being here with him isn't what she wants right now.

It's a little bit of a shock to realize that. For the past year of her life, she's spent so much of her time wanting to be where Will is, wanting his attention and his affection and she guesses she realized that feeling had been slipping, sometime around the time they talked about Kelly being his soulmate and it hadn't hurt as much as she thought it should, but it isn't until this moment that she realizes it's entirely gone.

“Maybe, I just need my best friend to be my best friend,” Allie tells him.

“So what, you don't want me to have an opinion?”

“I don't want every relationship in my life to be about how we survive!” The anger flashes hot for a moment, a fast burn. “That's all almost anyone ever fucking talks to me about anymore, don't you get that? I'm so tired of that! Can't we just be best friends sometimes?”

“I can't pretend that nothing is happening, Allie.”

“Why not? Why not, for just a minute? Are we not allowed to have even that?” She's so tired. All she wants from him is a few seconds of peace. It's not what he wants, though.

Will's quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks, she thinks his anger has dimmed, but it's still there, under the surface. “You sister died and you did a really good job stepping up, but sometimes things get messy. You don't get to make all the rules, not for me. There's some things you're not in control of.”

Allie can feel the tears on her cheeks then, even as Will is walking away. She's never felt less in control in her life.

* * *

 

 

When Allie wakes up, the familiar slant of morning light from Harry's window rousing her, she finds him already awake. He hasn't gotten out of bed, but she can see that his eyes are open, watching his ceiling fan circle lazily above them. Allie thinks he knows she's awake, but he doesn't look at her, doesn't say anything. She should get up, get dressed, get the hell out of here before anyone has a chance to see her, or worse, Campbell comes calling. Every second she lies here, there's a chance that this whole mess can get worse. But she doesn't want to go. She watches Harry watch the fan. She hasn't seen him in private since the clinic.

“Are you okay?” she asks, finally, softly.

“Yeah.”

“You've been seeing Gordie?” Allie wishes he would look at her. He feels far away again. She isn't sure if he's doing it on purpose. Is this a punishment for what she's asked him to do?

“Yeah. Kelly's coming by later. It's all fine.”

“Harry.” She touches his wrist, grasps it out of instinct, like she had that day she'd tried and failed to make him get out of bed. He'd looked at her when she done that. He looks at her now. Harry doesn't feel so far away when he looks at her like that.

“What happens now?” He asks, voice a soft murmur in the half light of the room. Allie doesn't know the answer to that. She'll have to try to talk to Lexie, that much she has figured out. It probably won't do any good, but she has to try. But past that... she has no idea. This was supposed to be a temporary problem, but now she has no clue how quickly or slowly this will all go.

“Can we just... pretend that I don't need to have an answer to that for a minute?”

Harry blinks at her, his expression shifting, and she thinks about Will's face last night, the frustration and the anger.

“Yeah,” Harry says, very quiet. “We can do that.” His wrist is warm under her fingers. For five minutes, nothing else exists.

 

Allie arranges to meet Lexie at the coffee shop with a dead, hopeless weight in her chest. This feels like an exercise in futility, but necessary all the same. If she doesn't try, she'll always wonder. Of course, it's hard to smother the fire in her chest with Lexie starts the meeting by telling Allie she's lucky she even showed up. It's so hard not to just hate Lexie, even when she has a good point, and when she doesn't...

She swallows it all down, bites her tongue, and admits she made a mistake. She did, Allie knows that. She should have taken Lexie's issue with the guard more seriously. She knows that _now_. But she's made a hundred other mistakes, ones that have nothing to do with Lexie, because when you're making decisions day in and day out, some of them turn out to be wrong. It doesn't seem like Lexie has even considered that. She seems determined to hate Allie with everything in her, no matter what.

Allie knows, even as the words are coming out of her mouth, that they won't do any good, that Lexie won't stop coming after her, or running for mayor, entirely out of spite. She'll see this through, because there is something so deeply bitter inside her that she's focused on Allie that she has to. It's like a compulsion.

“What are you gonna do if you're elected?” Allie asks, because she doubts Lexie has any idea. No one in this whole fucking place has any idea what it actually takes to run things because not one of them has ever had to do it. She thinks it's so easy, so straightforward, and it's anything but.

“You don't need to worry about that.” It takes every ounce of willpower Allie has not say something cruel and cutting to knock that smug look right off Lexie's face.

“Are you going to do things differently than me?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“I don't have to answer to you, Allie.” In other words, she doesn't know. She doesn't have an answer, and she's just like everyone else.

“It's really hard, you know. And it's gonna get harder. Keeping order, making sure people eat everyday, figuring out how we get home. You can win by making people angry at me. But once you win, that stops working.”

“Well thanks for the advice,” Lexie says sarcastically as she stands up. Allie wouldn't call it storming out, exactly, but it's close.

“Are you gonna make peace with the guard?” she calls after her.

“No!” The word bursts from Lexie, furious, unchecked. It's not a part of the performance she's been putting on. “No. They have too much power.”

Campbell's a problem, but Lexie is too. At least she understands what Campbell might want, but Lexie? Lexie just seems to want to take her down because she can. And what comes after? If Lexie dismisses the guard, there's no order, and they won't take it well, either. They're already chafing at the restraints Allie has put on them.

“You're half right about everything, you know that? And that's worse than being wrong. That makes you dangerous.”

Lexie walks back to the table. “You probably want to take that back.” She won't, Allie's not wrong.

“Look, Allie, I get it. You don't like to lose. You like power.”

She can't help it, she almost laughs. Here she is, trying to reason with someone who she neither likes nor who likes her, trying to balance what everyone wants and expects, the threat from Campbell, the impending winter, and Lexie thinks that she _enjoys_ this. Allie's never wanted any of this. If she thought she could let go of the reins and the whole world wouldn't go to hell in a hand basket, she'd do it in a heartbeat. She has never wanted something less. Lexie doesn't know what she's asking for.

“I don't. Believe me, I need power to get things done. But I hate it. And you will too, once this is over. I promise you.”

“Is that a threat or something?”

This is her last chance, so she has to take it, no matter how much she doesn't want to say the words. “No! No. I'll apologize for what happened, I'll explain everything, even arresting Elle. You can run for council. You'll be a part of making every decision, okay? We'll do this together, please Lexie.” For just a moment, she thinks maybe Lexie sees the good in that. But just for a moment.

“Go to Hell.” By the time Lexie says it, Allie's ready for the words. She watches Lexie stride out of the coffee shop and wonders if she could have said anything differently. Allie finishes her cup of coffee, before she stands up; it's a little too cool. She takes her time, buttoning her coat, playing over everything that was said, what might have been said instead. And then she puts the conversation to the side, steps outside into the cool air, and turns her feet towards home. There's still work to be done.

 

The problem is- when she gets home, no one's there. Allie sends Gordie a text, checking in with him, and another to Becca, asking if they can talk later. She hasn't seen or heard from Becca at all since Sam left, and she has no idea how she's reacted to the news. Allie really hopes Sam talked to her before he went. It will make facing her so much easier.

Allie retreats to her bedroom while she waits for her friends to get back to her. She sinks down into the soft pillows of her bed, and wonders if she can risk a nap. Harry's _probably_ not asleep right now, so she should be safe, but if she's wrong, it could cost all of them.

She doesn't realize she's drifted off for a few moments, until she hears Harry saying her name. For a breathless second, she panics, thinking she's waking up in his room, but no... She's still in her bed, and Harry's standing in the doorway to the room, still wearing his coat from outside. Allie takes a full second to process that he's come _here_ , and if he's done that, something is probably wrong.

“What are you doing here?” Allie asks, sitting up fast, her heart in her throat. Harry's eyes are panicked, and he takes several steps into her room, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, like he doesn't know where to start. He runs a hand through his hair.

“Harry!” Harry crosses the room to kneel at the edge of her bed, his hands landing on her knees.

“Campbell's going to have you arrested.”

“What? For what? How?”

“For tampering with the election, rigging it, whatever. He's going to claim you never meant for the election to be real in the first place. He's got Jason and Clark, maybe Shoe, I don't know.”

Allie's rapid heartbeat slows a little. Okay, she can work with this. There's got to be a way to turn this around on him. Harry's distress is getting in the way, his shoulders tight, his eyes wide.

“Hey.” She touches his cheek. There's a prickle of stubble along the line of his jaw. “It's okay. We have to smart about this. Do you know how soon he's planning to make this move?”

Harry inhales deeply, then exhales. “Not right away. He really wants Luke on his side. We're supposed to talk to him tonight. And he hasn't said, but I think he's going to try to pressure Lexie as well. She's popular right now, so she's useful, right?”

“Okay,” Allie murmurs, the gears turning in her head. Every person Campbell tries to bring into his coup is a potential weak link. Lexie is a lost cause, she hates Allie, and she's said too much too publicly to walk it back now without a serious blow to her ego. But that doesn't mean there aren't ways to turn this to her advantage.

“What are you going to do?” Harry asks.

“I don't know yet, but I have at least until the morning. You should get back, you don't want Campbell to miss you.”

Harry doesn't move. “I think you should just arrest Campbell now, while you still can.”

“For what? People are already pissed at me for arresting Elle. If I arrest Campbell, then I absolutely lose the election, it doesn't matter if it's justified.”

“You're already losing the election.” It's the truth, but it still feels a bit like a blow when he says it.

“I can't lose an election that doesn't happen because I've been arrested. This buys me time. If Campbell takes over through a coup, even if he puts Lexie's face on the whole thing, that's still not an election. That's easier to walk back than if people actually _vote_ for Lexie.” Allie's working through it as she says it. At the end of the day, this might actually help her, as long as she can convince people that she _didn't_ do the things they're going to claim she did. That'll be the big thing. People don't like her right now, and that will make them more likely to believe the bad things that they'll say about her.

“We let it play out,” Allie says, firm.

“What if it plays out the way Campbell wants it to- not just this part, all of it?”

“Then he wins. But I'm doing my best to make sure that doesn't happen.”

The way Harry's looking at her, she swears she can feel it like a physical touch, running his fingertips over the seams in her words, searching for a crack.

“You should go,” she says, hoping he won't find one. “Keep playing along. I'll figure something out.”

“Is that the truth?” he asks, finally. “Or are you just saying that because you have to?” Those words make Allie feel completely see through.

“I don't know.” If it were anyone else, she probably wouldn't admit that. But she's said so much worse to Harry. “But it's the best I've got, so you should go.”

Allie watches the doorway and the space where he had last been for a long time after he leaves, wondering how much of the truth she just told.

* * *

 

 

She's having dinner with Will and Gordie and Elle when Kelly comes over, breathless and anxious and wanting to tell them something. _What now?_ is all Allie can think when she sees the expression on Kelly's face. There's always something else. Kelly doesn't want to talk without Becca, so Allie sends Will to get her, and busies herself in the kitchen with making tea, while Kelly and Gordie talk in the living room, their heads bent together over some medical textbook. Quiet as a ghost, Elle had disappeared back upstairs without Allie even noticing.

When Will arrives with Becca, Allie takes her chance to pull Becca aside, nervousness creeping up her throat. She'd never answered her text, so Allie has no idea how she feels about her right now.

“Hey, I... I wanted to talk to you about Sam.”

Becca looks at her with unreadable expression for a long moment. She has dark circles under her eyes, but she doesn't look angry. “I know why he's gone.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I know.” She smiles a little wryly. “Took him long enough to tell me, but yeah.”

The relief that washes over Allie, that this is one less burden she has to carry, is so strong her knees feel a little weak.

“You guys, come on!” Kelly calls from the living room sofa, and it is with slightly lighter steps that Allie joins her friends.

Kelly's revelation about the bus driver comes out of left field. Allie's not sure how she's supposed to feel about all this talk of contracts and lawsuits and money that didn't change hands, but what she can't help but thinking, even as she weighs in, is that there are more pressing concerns. It matters, of course it matters, because ultimately she really, really wants to go home. But right now there's Campbell and Lexie and winter, and that's what she needs to be focused on.

Allie never gets to say this, though, because Becca goes into labor. They scramble to all rush to the clinic, even though Allie's pretty sure labor is generally a long process and more than half of them are definitely useless in this situation. She stays long enough to see Becca settled in. Allie's not sure she's really absorbed it yet, that Becca's about to have a _baby_. She'd dwell on it longer if she had the time, but Allie's pretty sure she's getting arrested in the morning, so she's got some work to do.

“You should stay here with Becca,” she tells Will, when he moves to follow her out. “Sam isn't here, and Kelly and Gordie will be busy trying to figure out how to deliver a baby.”

“I don't understand why Sam left, like what the fuck was that about?” Will says, but it doesn't look like he actually expects Allie to answer.

“Just stay with her, okay?”

“Yeah,” Will agrees, glancing back over his shoulder at Becca and Kelly.

“Come walk Becca around, Will!” Kelly calls, when she sees him looking. He goes, and Allie takes the chance and excuses herself from the clinic. Hours, that's what she's working with, to make sure that she's ready when they come for her.

 

She falls asleep a little earlier than she means to, which she only realizes when she wakes up, 5 AM, alarm blaring, with Harry's arm around her waist.

“Fuck,” Allie says into her pillow, pulling her phone out of her pocket and silencing it.

“What's wrong?” Harry asks, groggy.

“I was going to bring my hat to bed so I could have it for the walk back this morning,” Allie complains, irrationally annoyed for such a small issue. She's being arrested today.

Harry snorts. “And here I thought it was something serious.”

“Easy for _you_ to say, your ears aren't the ones that are going to be cold.” She finds herself grinning, because Harry's good at this part, pretending like everything's normal when she needs him to. Allie rolls over, into him, so she can see his face. Harry's words had been dripping with his humor, but his face is serious, tired. She closes her eyes and leans into where their skin touches.

“You've been going to Gordie like we agreed, right?” Allie asks, her voice muffled by where her face is pressed into his shoulder, soaking up his warmth and closeness.

“Don't worry about me.”

Allie lifts her head. “Hey.” She waits until he meets her eyes, something a little apprehensive in his expression. She's spent so long trying to work out what this thing is, how much she's _allowed_ to care about him, and she's really, really tired of doing that. “I do.”

Harry's eyes close. He looks almost pained by this, as if her words were cruel, rather than gentle. As if Allie were trying to hurt him.

“What is it?” she murmurs. She doesn't understand that look.

“I don't think you should.” Something in Allie's heart cracks a little. She lays her head back down on his shoulder, her next words tripping off her tongue. “It's not up to you,” she says, soft. “It's just how I feel.”

When Harry turns toward her, he's so close his nose brushes the top of her head. There's a moment where Allie feels suspended in time, unsure of what he might do or say. Harry shifts, slightly, his breath a ghost of a touch across her forehead, before he presses his lips there.

I don't think you should go through with this.” She can feel the shape of the words as he says them.

“Everything will be okay,” Allie tells him, but she feels like she's saying it to herself. She doesn't want to do this any more than Harry wants her to.

“What if it isn't?”

“That's a risk I have to take.”

“You don't,” he murmurs. “Just don't.”

Allie can't give him that. “This is the best shot. For all of us.” He knows she's right. They stay like that, quiet and unmoving for a few minutes.

“I have to go,” she says, when she can't wait any longer, and Harry doesn't say anything as she rolls away from him and out of her bed. He doesn't say anything while she gets dressed, or as she's tying her shoes. He doesn't say anything until she's got her hand on the doorknob of his bedroom door.

“Hey, Pressman.”

Allie turns around, raises an eyebrow at him.

“Thanks,” Harry says.

“For what?”

The corner of his mouth lifts in the hint of a smile. “If you pull this off, I'll tell you.”

An unexpected laugh leaves her lips. He always did seem to know she was bad at backing down from a challenge. “I don't think that's very fair,” she tells him, biting back a smile.

“Playing fair is overrated.”

She'll make sure to tell Campbell that.

* * *

 

Gordie and Will are in the kitchen with her when the guard comes for her- Jason, Clark, and Luke. She hasn't warned them, which Allie knows might not be fair, but she needs their reactions to be real. It's important that no one realizes she saw this coming. She'd made that decision expecting Campbell to come gloat as she's arrested. He's not here yet, but she'll be surprised if he doesn't arrive soon.

“Hi guys?” She hopes her confusion is believable. Of course, the guard aren't the most observant bunch, she should save the best acting for Campbell. “What?”

“You're under arrest,” Clark says. It's not a shock until he says, “Both of you.”

She hadn't planned on this. No one else was supposed to get mixed up in this thing she was choosing to go through with.

“Is that a joke?” She doesn't have to fake the stress and fear in voice. “I'm under arrest? For what?”

“For trying to steal the election,” Luke answers. He looks almost as stressed as Allie feels.

“You know that's not true,” Allie directs this at Luke, but he looks away from her and nods at Clark, who moves across the room towards Allie. Jason heads for Will.

“You don't have the authority-” Will begins, and Allie mentally begs him not to fight.

“Seems like we do, though, since we're doing it.” Jason replies, pushing Will back. Gordie is off to the side, watching with wide eyes. Allie sends up a silent prayer that he stays out of it. If they arrest Gordie, she doesn't know what that will mean for Harry.

“Fuck this!” Allie backs up towards the sink, adrenaline making her shaky and a little out of control. And she thought she'd have to pretend. They're cornering her when Campbell makes his appearance, trailed by Shoe.

He waves, cheerful. “Well, don't look me like that, you definitely considered arresting me once.” God, she hates him.

“But I didn't!”

“I'm not responsible for your mistakes.” He's right about one thing, letting him fester like an open wound had been a mistake. “Where's Elle?” She doesn't answer him. It pisses him off, she can see that, even though he's smiling.

“Seriously?” Campbell asks. “It's not that big of a house. Fine. I'll find her myself.” The tear that rolls down Allie's cheek as Campbell stalks away is real; she's not that good of an actor. Cassandra could have faked some tears for this charade, but for Allie, it's real. She wishes she was back at Harry's, an hour and half ago. She wishes she didn't feel like she had to do this.

 

They all stand in fraught silence in the kitchen until Campbell comes back with Elle. Jason and Clark look smug; Luke looks a little sick.

“Okay, Shoe, you stay here with them.” Campbell speaks up. No one is even pretending he doesn't run the show. “Gordie, you can go.”

“What?” Gordie asks. He's at Allie's shoulder, and she wishes she had told him about this, even if he hadn't been good at acting too shocked. She needs him to stay free.

“We're not going to punish our political opponents, only people who have committed specific crimes.”

“You're full of shit,” Gordie snaps.

“You should go before you piss me off,” Campbell responds, the cheerful facade wavering a little.

“Fuck you! I'm not-”

“Gordie.” Allie puts a hand on his arm. She hopes that when he looks at her, he understands what she needs from him. Stay free, stay available, make sure Harry's okay. “Gordie, you should go.”

“What?” He's angry, but anger isn't going to get them very far right now.

“You do us no good being imprisoned in this house.” _Realize what I need from you_ , Allie adds silently. _Please, Gordie. Be smart_.

Gordie slams the door when he leaves, but he leaves, and Allie feels a small amount of the tension in her shoulders ease. That's at least one thing that hasn't gone wrong.

“What do you want, Campbell?” Will asks. Jason's got a fistful of his shirt. Campbell takes a few steps toward Will, then fakes a punch as his face, sending Will flinching backwards, but without far to go with Jason holding him.

“Aw,” Campbell's cheerfulness has returned full force. “Not so uppity now, are you? I wanna pull the strings a bit, that's all.” Campbell shrugs, like that's nothing, turning his back on Will and striding over to where Elle stands, quiet.

“We've got some business in the church, you wanna go home and I'll meet you there?” Campbell's voice is quieter as he speaks directly to Elle, but not so quiet that they can't all hear what he's saying. There's a possessive way that he looks at Elle that makes Allie's stomach churn.

“Yeah,” Elle says, and she kisses him back when he leans in, hands cupping her face. Allie pictures his hands around her throat and tries not to look away. Campbell's a predator, and you don't take your eyes off a predator. Elle starts to go, but Campbell catches her hand and pulls her back.

“Wait, wait. Say goodbye to her first.” There is only one person he could be talking about.

“What?” Elle asks.

“Spit in her face.”

“What?”

“Spit in her face. She humiliated you, now it's her turn.” When Elle meets her eyes, Allie can almost hear her screaming. But to her credit, she doesn't hesitate long, as she crosses the space between them and stands before her. She has to do it, they both know that. Campbell's wrath is not worth risking, and Elle's playing a very dangerous game, even more so than Allie.

She tries not to flinch, when Elle spits on her, tries to keep her face impassive. She's not sure she succeeds.

“I'll make sure you get what's coming to you.” Elle holds her eyes as she speaks. “I promise.”

Campbell's grin is wide as he follows Elle out of the house.

“What'd they promise you, Luke?” Allie asks, as he turns to go too. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Shoe with his gun, watching them all. Luke still looks like he might throw up.

“Nothing.”

“Right,” Allie laces venom into her words. “What your loyalty's worth.”

 

They leave her and Will handcuffed to the radiator for at least three hours. Allie knows it's intentional. Campbell didn't have to put them here for all this time, but he's making a point, or being dramatic, or both. He wants to get inside their heads, wear them down from the inside out. He loves fucking with people. That's probably why he arrested Will in the first place, to fuck with Allie. He doesn't need Will. Sure, Will is someone that Allie turns to to help her lead, but no more than Gordie, who Campbell let go. People don't see Will as in charge by default if Allie isn't. There's no reason he has to be here. Except Campbell is spiting her. Of course he is. She should have seen that coming, but she didn't, and now she'll have to rethink again, see if there's a way to turn this to her advantage.

It's late afternoon by the time the guard comes for them, bundling them into the back of a black SUV and delivering them to the steps of the library, where Harry and Lexie are standing in front of a crowd, Campbell lurking in the background. So that's how he's going to play it. Harry and Lexie, a united front, the faces of his plot, and him, the man behind the curtain. She hadn't really expected him to give that much to Harry, to be honest.

The crowd is angry, yelling, as Jason pulls Allie out of the car, and Clark manhandles Will out of the other side. Their hands are cuffed behind their backs, and and the sun is angling down in a way that makes it hard for her look at the sea of faces. She catches a glimpse of Kelly, brows furrowed, and Helena. Allie tries not to look directly at anyone else.

Harry has to whistle to get the crowd quiet enough for him to speak. Campbell's cleaned him up, made sure he looks shiny and bright and like the Harry that everyone knew in high school.

“These are people who we trusted,” Harry gestures at her, and for a second, he's not the Harry she knows. He's someone else, someone who believes what he's saying. He's a good actor, she'll give him that. “People who betrayed us. We wanted you to see them for who they really are.”

Harry's opened his mouth, surely ready to deliver whatever next line Campbell has had him memorize, but before he gets the chance, someone throws a rock that hits Will in the chest. The crowd starts screaming again

“Hey!” Allie yells, pulling against where Jason's holding her. “None of what they're saying is true! None of it!” The next rock hits Allie in the forehead, and even sends Jason flinching back from where he's standing behind her. Allie thinks she might be bleeding.

“No, no!” Lexie shoves herself forward. She's been suspiciously quiet this whole time. “No, no, stop! Stop, okay. Listen to me! You cannot do it this way! We'll figure it all out, but not like that because we are _not_ a mob. Alright? We still have rules here. We'll figure out what their punishment should be eventually-”

“What the fuck's going on, Luke?” Grizz is the last person Allie expected to see right now, but he pushes himself to the front of the crowd. He looks like he needs a shower, his backpack still on, but he's there. There's something infinitely comforting about seeing him there, someone who's on her side in the face of it all.

“Stay quiet, Grizz,” Luke says, but it almost sounds like a question.

“What are you doing, Clark?” That's Gwen, next to Grizz.

“Did you find land, Grizz?” Allie calls out. This matters, more than any of it. They need this to survive. It matters to how they even make it through the next few months, no matter who is in charge.

“Yeah, Allie, we found land to farm. And animals, and fish!” Allie finds herself smiling in relief, even with the blood threatening to drip into her eyes and the stinging pain in her forehead. It'll be work, but they can survive. And she and her friends gave them all that, not Lexie, not Campbell, she did. People might be too angry to realize it right now, but they'll see it soon.

Grizz takes a few more steps forward and Luke comes to meet him. “Why's she bleeding?”

“A lot happened while you were gone, alright? You'll find out later.” Grizz looks like he might argue, but then Lexie is yelling over everyone again.

“Listen to me. Listen to me! Everything stays the same. Okay? When things change, they'll change slowly. We'll learn how to farm. We'll be okay. Just for now, go back to your houses. Dinner at six in the cafeteria, as usual. Just... Just go home. Go home!” The crowd begins to disperse. Whatever this meeting was going to be, it's not now. Campbell had let it all happen, hadn't tried to insert himself. He's still back there, somewhere behind her, lurking.

Jason doesn't seem to know what he's supposed to do with Allie, so she takes her chance and faces Lexie, who looks a little shell shocked, more shaken than Allie's seen her. It's already beginning. She might already be regretting it.

“I know what you're thinking,” Allie says to her, and she doesn't try to hide the anger in her voice. Lexie deserves her anger. “'What am I doing? This isn't me.' But it is you. That's how fast it happens.” For once, Lexie doesn't have a smart reply.

Allie locks eyes with Harry, standing at Lexie's shoulder. If she didn't know him so well, she might not see the question in his eyes- _what now?_ But she does, and she hopes that he can see the answer in hers as she stares him down. _Keep playing along. Don't let Campbell find out._

“Hey guys, come on, let's go.” Harry says to the guard, and they begin to pull Allie and Will back to the car. She doesn't stop looking at Harry and Lexie, because she's afraid that if she lets herself look away, she'll look to Campbell, and he'll somehow see how much she knows. She doesn't look anywhere but at Harry and Lexie until they push her back into the car.

The sound of the SUV doors slamming is loud, but Allie can hardly hear it over the blood rushing in her ears. There's that fire, roaring in Allie's chest, but it feels warm and satisfied, instead of furious. Grizz is back. They've found land. Lexie is floundering, and Harry's not what everyone thinks. There are still pieces to move, quietly put in position, but not as many as there used to be. And he doesn't know yet it, but Allie's not playing Campbell's game anymore, he's playing hers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! 
> 
> I know this update took a while, and I'm sorry, I've been very busy & I got a surprise visit from my best friend and got literally nothing done while she was here. 
> 
> I had to alter little bits of dialogue and stuff that I took from the canon scenes, since things like Allie arresting Campbell didn't happen in the fic like it did in the show, but yeah, you'll notice there's more directly canon scenes in this chapter, but with some twists, since the circumstances are different. 
> 
> Aaaaand, now we've caught up to the end of the show, same scene, different context. There will be one more chapter in this fic, and though it's going to take place in a very short amount of time (because I don't want to push too far into what could be season 2 territory), obviously if I write anything based on season 2 (fingers crossed we'll GET a season 2) as a sequel to this, I'll be constantly having to alter everything based on what happens to the characters in the next chapter, since it will be the first chapter completely diverging from canon. So... wish me luck that I'm not making a ton of work for myself with chapter 7. Only time will tell. 
> 
> hope you're all doing well! <3


	7. I Will Hold You 'til I Hold You Right

She and Will don't speak the entire car ride back to Allie's house. They don't speak until after Luke has re-chained them to the radiator and left them alone again. This is the one small mercy Campbell has shown them, letting them stay in Allie's house and alone together. Not that he likely thinks of it that way. If he did, he'd never allow it. Campbell doesn't do anything like mercy intentionally if it doesn't benefit him somehow.

Standing in front of everyone on the steps of the library, feeling their anger and how quick they all were to believe the worst in her, it's shaken Allie a little. Some part of her, maybe something still left from before all this, had wanted to believe they might not be so easy to manipulate, but she should have known better. Lexie had started it, and Campbell had just pushed it along, used the situation to his own advantage. Give people something to fear and hate, they'll give you power on a silver platter. It's an age old tactic.

“We have to get out of here,” Will murmurs, the first to break the silence. But that doesn't really matter. Get out of here and go where? It's just like Elle said, there's nowhere to go. They have to figure out how to fix _this_ , how to turn the tide right back against Campbell. But in order to do that, they have to get through these next few hours, until Campbell's ready to make his next move and they aren't chained to a radiator in the corner of Allie's living room. Facing everyone might have been scary, but this will be harder.

“I have to tell you something,” Allie says. It's not ideal timing, but she's thought about it and there's no other way around it at this point. “And you're gonna be mad at me, but... it has to be now.”

“What is it? What's going on?” She can feel Will's gaze on the side of her face, and she's terrified to look at him when she says this, but she thinks she owes him that. After everything they've been through together, their years of friendship, she can look him in the eyes when she says this. Three slow, deep breaths. She meets his eyes.

“I have a soulmate.” Allie hesitates, because this is going to be a mess. “It's Harry.”

“What?” Will just blinks at her, the expression on his face not changing, the information is failing to absorb.

“Harry... He's working with Campbell because I asked him to. I realized Campbell was planning something and it's a long story, the whole thing is so fucking complicated, but... Harry's on our side. And so now you and I, we have to keep each other awake, because if I fall asleep and wake up in Harry's bed, that could ruin _everything_. Campbell can't find out about me and Harry, and he can't find out that Harry's not really helping him. If you fall asleep and end up where Kelly is, they'll drag her into this whole thing too.” 

“You're serious,” Will says, slow.

“I'm serious.”

“You wanna explain to me what we're doing in fucking handcuffs if Harry's on our side?” Will asks, his voice getting louder with every word. There's the anger. She's already braced for it. “You wanna fucking explain that speech about us betraying everyone? Harry's on  _our_ side? I don't fucking think-” 

“Will.” Allie's shocked by how cold and authoritative her own voice comes out, calm in a way that's almost eerie. It stops him dead in the middle of his sentence. “I'll explain everything, every tiny detail if that's what you want. But you need to not yell about this here. When we get out of here, you can ask whatever questions that you want, but until then, you need to keep that shit to yourself.”

“I asked you.” Will's voice is quiet this time, but still furious. “I  _asked_ if there was something going on between you and Harry and you lied to my face.” 

“I know.” Allie wonders if she should feel bad about that. She doesn't. That was her's and Harry's. She understands why Will's mad at her, she gets it. But she doesn't feel bad about keeping Harry to herself. There had been so many reasons it had needed to stay that way, a lot of things they needed to work through.

“You really think you can trust him? After what happened with Cassandra?”

“I know I can.” Allie can admit she's never acknowledged this even to herself until the words are out of her mouth. “I don't expect you to understand it. You have _no idea_ how long it's taken me to figure that out. And that's my fault, because I didn't tell you. So I get it, you don't know him like I do. But I do know him, now, Will. And when I say he's with us, I mean it.”

“I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to believe that.”

“What do you have to lose?”

Will's quiet. They're stuck here for now, either way. He can choose to believe her or not believe her, all she needs is for him to make sure she stays awake. They can work out whatever damage Allie's done to their friendship after. Survive first, mend fences later.

Will's still not talking to her when Jason brings Gordie in to see them. For a moment, Allie's terrified he's gotten himself arrested as well, but then Jason says something about how he doesn't get why Allie gets someone to patch up all her boo-boos and she realizes they've allowed Gordie in to deal with the bloody cut on her temple. It's long since stopped bleeding, but it still stings a little if she moves her eyebrows.

They can't say much- Jason watches them, arms crossed and his jaw set, standing back a few feet from them, like he's trying to exude an air of authority. Like they haven't all seen him sprawled out on that exact couch he's standing behind, stuffing his face full of pizza bagels and cursing when he dies in Overwatch. Allie pointedly ignores him, because if there's one thing Jason hates, it's being irrelevant- maybe because he knows he usually is.

“I don't think it's too bad, head wounds just bleed a lot,” Gordie says, setting the white plastic first aid kit he has with him down on the floor as he kneels next to Allie. To be honest, her head doesn't hurt as much as her legs or back from sitting stuck, handcuffed to the radiator, for hours. She and Will don't have a lot of options for sitting positions, and by now, her joints feel tight and stiff.

Gordie pops open the first aid kit and leans in close as he wipes the blood off Allie's forehead with some sort of damp cloth, staining it red. “Tell me you have a plan,” he murmurs as he works, low, so Jason won't hear.

“How do you feel about half of one?” Allie asks.

“Like this isn't the time for jokes.” He applies something that stings a little as he says it. “Look, if your whole plan relies on Harry, then I don't-”

“It doesn't,” Allie interrupts, trying not to glance at Jason over Gordie's shoulder and hoping he's as oblivious as he seems to be. “The less you know, the better. The less everyone has to lie, the easier this will be.”

Gordie's frowning as he positions a bandaid on her forehead. “I really hope you know what you're doing, Allie.” He presses something into her palm, paper, before he busies himself with the first aid kit again, putting things away. Allie doesn't dare look at what Gordie's handed her, keeping her hand tucked carefully away from Jason's eyes. It will have to wait until she and Will are alone again.

“Any idea on how long we're going to be stuck here?” Allie asks, loud enough for Jason to hear. If he's reporting back to Campbell, things need to seem normal- or, as normal as they can be.

“Yeah, like they tell me anything,” Gordie says, with a wry twist of his lips.

“We didn't even leave Dewey handcuffed for hours,” Allie responds, watching Jason shift uncomfortably in the background.

“Yeah, well, we're not Campbell.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Okay, okay,” Jason interrupts finally, taking a step forward. “Time's up, Doogie.”

“Oh, an outdated doctor joke, how original, Jason. You know it's been like 40 years since that was relevant, right?” Gordie responds, picking up the first aid kit, and shooting Allie one last glance before he straightens up.

“Whatever. Point is, it's time to go.”

Jason manhandles Gordie a little bit on the way out of the room, probably because he can, and Allie takes deep breaths and sends up a prayer for patience- for herself, for Gordie, for Will, for everyone that she's relying on. They can't go on like this much longer.

 

Allie waits fifteen full minutes before she dares to look at the paper Gordie passed her, eyes glued on the clock on the wall across the room as she waits. Will still doesn't seem inclined to talk to her, but she feels wide awake, wondering what Gordie deemed worth risking giving to her.

She unfolds the paper, trying to pretend her hands aren't shaking. It's a note, scribbled in a handwriting she doesn't recognize- not Gordie, then.

_Campbell's planning to blame you for Thanksgiving. He's going to say you did it to instill fear and hold onto power. Luke and the rest of the guard will back him up. I think he's planning an execution. We don't have a lot of time, so I really hope you have something up your sleeve, Pressman._

Allie bites back a smile, despite the contents of the letter. Harry. His nickname for her at the end had been as good as a signature and so much safer. Harry's smarter than he gets credit for. It's still a dangerous move, sending the note with Gordie. If he'd been caught, Campbell would know someone in his inner circle had betrayed him, but he wouldn't be 100% sure about who.

She reads the note three times, then shreds it into the smallest pieces she possibly can, and slips them under the edge of the carpet, where hopefully they'll stay hidden.

“What did it say?”

Allie's almost startled by Will's voice, he's been so quiet. “Campbell's going to blame me for Thanksgiving.” She doesn't mention the execution part, there's no point in getting Will worked up about that, not until she's had some time to think.

“But you were poisoned too.”

“All part of the act, I guess. It's pretty smart of him, actually. He's accusing me of doing exactly what he's doing- scaring people enough to hand over power and not question too much. It's a solid tactic for a while. But people get restless, and then things like Lexie happen.”

“So what do we do about it?”

Allie chews on her bottom lip, thinking about how to answer. “They've done a really good job of making me look really bad. No one trusts me. Once they tell everyone that I'm behind the poisoning at Thanksgiving, they'll trust me even less. The only way I can regain that trust, the only way we can make sure that Campbell's not just _down,_ but _out_ of the game, is if we can prove they're lying.”

“How do we do that?”

Allie tilts her head back against the wall. There's a headache forming in her left temple, and this will probably only upset Will again. “What makes you think I haven't already started?”

Will's quiet, and then- “You weren't ever going to include me in any of these plans, were you?”

“It's not because I don't trust you,” Allie says, instead of admitting he's right. “It's because you're safer the less you know. And Campbell would never ever trust you, so there was nothing you could do. Everyone knows you're on my side.”

“And what about Gordie? Campbell doesn't trust him, but he clearly knows _something_.”

“Gordie only knows what Gordie needs to know to do his job. Same as everyone else.”

“And Harry?”

Allie glances over at Will, but he's not looking at her. This is it, really. This is what Will's upset about, the idea that she's put more trust in Harry than him. It's not really how he thinks, but it also _is_ , because at the end of the day, neither of them know everything, but she _wants_ to talk to Harry about it in a way that she doesn't with Will.

“It's the same with him.” It's not technically a lie. “He knows what he needs to, nothing more.”

“Sure,” Will says, but it's clear he doesn't believe her. Allie doesn't have the energy to try to convince him.

 

The sun's just starting to set outside the windows, sending light slanting across the living room and lengthening all the shadows when someone finally comes to see them again. It's Harry.

“What are you doing here?” Allie instinctively finds herself whispering, quiet in case there's anyone behind the door, but panicked. She takes back what she'd thought about Harry being smarter than he gets credit for.

“It's fine.” Harry crosses the room to kneel in front of her. “I'm on guard duty, no one else is around. Campbell's a little thin on personnel.”

“What if he comes looking for you?”

“He won't. He's busy out schmoozing, trying to figure out who it's smartest to collect next. I think he'd really like Helena, and he's leaning on Luke to bring her in on things, but she's not been particularly receptive.”

“Still, what are you doing here?”

Harry's lips tilt up into the approximation of a grin, and he produces two tiny silver keys from his pocket. The keys to their handcuffs. She can't believe Campbell let Harry have them. But then, she supposes it's only logical that whoever is on guard would be prepared to move them if necessary.

“You wanna get out of here?”

She does. God, she does. But the situation hasn't changed from this morning. If she gets out, she still has nowhere to go. Particularly not if Campbell is going to frame her for Thanksgiving. Escape would only be an illusion.

“That's not really a part of the plan.” Harry doesn't look as surprised as she thought he would. Next to her, Will makes an annoyed sound at the back of his throat.

“I was worried you might say that.” Harry runs a hand through his already ruffled hair. He doesn't look polished like he had that morning on the steps. “Let me at least uncuff you guys for ten minutes while you explain to me why you think it's a good idea to stay here after I've already warned you that Campbell wants to _execute_ you.”

“ _What_?” Will interjects, loud and upset.

“You didn't tell him?” _That_ seems to surprise Harry.

“Seems to be a lot of that going around these days,” Will answers, before Allie has the chance. She'll fix things with Will. She'll make everything okay again, but that can't be her first priority, not right now. She holds her hands out toward Harry, eyebrows raised.

Harry unlocks her handcuffs, then Will's setting them carefully on the coffee table next to their respective keys. Will gets up immediately, stretching and cursing under his breath, striding across the room to get himself a glass of water. Allie wouldn't mind one as well, but she doesn't think asking for any favors, no matter how small, from Will at the moment is a good idea. And she has other things to focus on.

Allie stumbles a little as she stands, her body stiff and uncoordinated from the hours on the floor. Harry steadies her with a hand to her elbow. She rolls her shoulders, her neck, and tries to ignore the pins and needles feeling of the blood returning to her feet.

“So?” Harry says, expectant.

“The less you know about it, the better. But I do need you to deliver something to Gordie for me.” By the time she finishes her sentence, she's already crossed to the kitchen counter and is shuffling through one of the drawers for some scrap paper and a pen. She can sense Harry when he joins her, leaning on the counter across from her, his arms crossed over his chest. He's happier with her than Will is, at the moment, but he's definitely not thrilled.

Allie makes the message as simple as she can, folding the paper over when she's done. She hesitates to hand it over when she looks up and sees the expression on Harry's face.

“Don't read it.”

“I'm gonna need a better reason to leave you here.”

“Harry, please.”

“I'm serious. I'll deliver your note. I won't even read it. But you're going to have to give me a reason this is the best idea we've got. Because right now, it sure as hell doesn't feel like it.” She forgets how persuasive he can be when he wants to, calm, confident, just a little bit charming.

“I'm trying to keep all the pieces separate.” This is for his own good. This is what's best for everyone. If only Allie knows what the whole board looks like, that gives the rest of them some layer of protection, of genuine deniability. She knows Will's having a hard time swallowing it, and now Harry too. The expression on his face tells her she's not winning this one, so she gives an inch.

“You're not the only person I have on the inside.” Harry blinks, eyes widening slightly. “But that doesn't _matter_ if everyone out there still thinks I'm the devil. So I have to make sure that when I walk back out there _free,_ people won't be screaming for my blood anymore.”

“Who is it?”

“I can't tell you that.”

Harry huffs out a breath, looks away from her. “How do I know you're not just saying that to convince me?”

“You'll just have to trust me. They don't know about you either, Harry. It's what keeps you both as safe as you can be.” Allie needs him to understand. And not just because she needs him for everything to work, to deliver the note, to keep his head down, and keep his eyes on Campbell. She just needs him to understand. In all these months, Harry's always found a way to understand her, to quietly accept her and her decisions, even when no one else does.

“What about you?” He asks, face serious, voice quiet.

“What about me?”

“What's keeping you safe?”

Allie opens her mouth to answer, but finds she doesn't have one. Nothing about this is safe for her. She knows that. But it's the only way she can see anything going back to something even close to normal. She has to fight for that.

“It's not safe,” Allie admits, soft. “But I need you to trust that I can do this.”

Harry's jaw is tight, and he takes several moments to answer, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes conflicted. “Give me the note,” he says, finally. Allie lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding and hands it over. Harry pockets it. They stand there for a few more moments, just looking at each other. Harry looks away first.

 

She and Will both get some water, a snack, and a bathroom break before Harry handcuffs them back to their spot at the radiator. Will's hardly spoken since Harry entered the room, but that's not really that different from how he's been all day. He doesn't even say anything as Harry checks his cuffs. He almost looks like he's just disappeared into his own head, like he's detached himself from all of this.

Harry's fingers linger on Allie's wrist after her gets her handcuffs back on. “Whatever is happening, I don't think it'll be long. Campbell's not one to leave loose threads.” Harry's not looking her in the eye, so Allie curls her fingers over his, squeezing softly.

“Trust me.”

Harry leans a little closer, using his free hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind Allie's ear. His hand falls to her shoulder, warm against where her skin meets the collar of her shirt. Allie uses the grip on his hands to tug him a little closer. He follows her silent instruction, so close his nose nearly bumps hers.

“If you get yourself killed doing this,” Harry murmurs, his hand on the back of her neck, his forehead warm where it's leaning against hers, “I will never ever forgive you.”

“Noted.”

Harry's laugh is small and a little watery. He pulls away from her slow and straightens up. She watches the way he starts to reconstruct that mask he's been wearing, the one that everyone expects to see from him, shoulders loosening, crooked smile appearing for a moment.

“Guess I'll see you around, Pressman.” He sounds perfectly casual, the Harry that had worn popularity like a favorite sweatshirt, comfortable and thoughtless.

“If you're lucky,” Allie says back, chin up, sinking into the calming familiarity of teasing him. Harry's grin is a little easier than the last one he gave her.

“Think quite a lot of yourself, don't you?” Harry asks, even as he's backing towards the door, widening the gap between them, edging ever closer to his departure.

“Or not so much of you.”

“If you two could maybe save the flirting for when I'm not literally locked in the room with you,” Will speaks up, sounding somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. Allie finds herself laughing. She catches a flash of a smile from Harry, and then he's gone, but Allie's still laughing.

* * *

 

 

They don't come for her until morning. She and Will spent the night talking about practically everything but the reality of their situation. They'd danced around the topic of soulmates, of Harry, and Kelly, and the secrets that were kept between them. Allie doesn't have the energy to fight with him, and she thinks maybe Will feels the same, because he never tries to get into it either. Instead, they keep each other awake with anecdotes from their childhood, on stories about Cassandra, and arguments over trivial things, like sorting characters into Harry Potter houses and which of the Star Wars movies is the best. It's the sort of conversation they might have had before, and one they haven't had in months. Even though it's heavy with things left unsaid, it feels good.

When they arrive, it's all of them- Campbell, Jason, Clark, Luke, Harry, Lexie, and even Elle. Allie straightens her shoulders and tries to keep her face impassive when Campbell leans close, smirking at her while he unlocks her handcuffs. Campbell's unsettling, but no more so than usual. He's always made her uncomfortable, even when they were kids.

“Big day, little cousin,” Campbell says cheerful, as he takes her elbow and hauls her to her feet. They leave Will cuffed to the radiator.

“Hey!” he yells after them, as they bundle Allie out of the room. “Where are you taking her?! Campbell!” He's still yelling when Campbell closes the front door behind them, cutting off his words. It's a cold morning, crisp and clear. Allie finds herself shivering. Unlike yesterday, they haven't bothered to give her back her coat or hat, so she's left in her jeans and a long sleeved sweater, not nearly enough to cut the sharpness of the morning air.

This time, they bring her to the church. Allie recognizes the set up, because it looks just like it did when they tried Dewey. She's on the other side of it this time, facing the alter, hands in front of her on the table, Helena quiet next to her, given the hard job all over again. It won't matter what Helena says. This is all for show, Allie knows that. Campbell's going to create a mob, and then hide it under a mask of lawful justice. Distantly, Allie wonders if he learned that from her. She's unsure about a lot of things these days.

By the time the people start arriving, Allie's gone numb. She doesn't feel scared; she doesn't feel anything. She's having a hard time focusing, everything blurring together a little bit. She already knows how this ends. She already knows what they're going to say. And people will believe them. People will believe them because Allie's the easy villain. Everyone likes that, having someone to blame.

Allie can't muster any emotion until they put her up there on the stand to defend herself. Even then, it doesn't come easy. She's not really here. But then she meets Harry's eyes from where he's sitting in the front pew, next to Lexie, dark circles under his eyes, but not a hair out of place. He's still playing the game because she asked him to. She has to keep playing too. So she cries, tears that become real faster than she expected. She tells the truth, or as much of it as she can. She didn't poison anyone. They want to blame this on her because it gets her out of the way. She accuses Campbell of being behind it all, while he sits back, on the other side of Harry, smirking because he know it won't work. But he's wrong. It's not about convincing them; it's about planting the seed. And now's the time.

 

The jury finds her guilty. For a moment, Allie thinks she and Campbell are the only ones in the whole place that aren't shocked by that. They'd both seen exactly how this would play out. And unlike with Dewey, it's eerily quiet as they march her out of the church, and back into what is now a midday sun. It's still too cold.

Where Allie had agonized over the decision of how to sentence Dewey, Lexie had announced Allie's execution with the verdict still fresh in the air. Maybe that's why it had been so quiet when they'd walked her out. Allie's detached again, floating somewhere above it all, somewhere deep inside of herself that no one can touch.

Campbell meets them on the steps, shrugging his coat on. He smiles at her guard, at Helena, who looks sick to her stomach. “Well, let's not waste time, shall we?”

They take her directly to the woods. Luke and Jason holding each of her elbows to keep her from tripping on the underbrush, as if that matters, as if they don't mean to kill her in a few minutes. Allie watches Campbell cut a path through the woods in front of her, holding hands with Elle. Somewhere behind her, Allie can hear Clark talking quietly either to Lexie or Harry, she's not sure which. They didn't bring Helena. Allie supposes Campbell doesn't particularly care if anyone prays over her soul. Still, it would have looked better for him to bring Helena, she can't help but thinking.

The clearing they stop in is too pretty to be the spot of an execution. There are a few winter flowers poking out of the fallen leaves, delicate and white. Snowdrops, she thinks, absently. It's a beautiful day. It doesn't feel possible that they've come here to kill her.

Campbell doesn't put her in a chair or blindfold her like they had with Dewey, but he makes her stand in the middle of the clearing, hands still cuffed in front of her. She's shivering; he's smiling. There's something _alive_ in Campbell's eyes that Allie isn't used to seeing there. It's like he's never been more alive than when he plans to kill. He's standing very close to her the rest of the group somewhere behind her, and she can't help but hoping he isn't the last person she ever sees. Campbell leans just a little closer, tucks some hair behind Allie's ear with mock fondness.

“I did warn you that you should be afraid of me,” Campbell says, soft, “ _Cousin_.”

Allie looks him in the eyes, jaw set, refusing to give him the satisfaction of reacting. He steps away from her, and then it's very quiet. There's a cardinal on a branch on the other side of the clearing, bright red against the stark browns of the tree branches. Allie watches it, heart in her throat, eyes wide open. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knows she could be about to die.

There's the low murmuring of voices behind her, words she can't quite make out. Allie keeps her eyes on the bird. _“I want to_ , _”_ Allie barely catches it, three little words on the breeze. The cardinal hops to a new branch, ruffles its feather. She smiles.

The gunshot is deafening. Red wings against the sky, the cardinal takes flight, and slowly, Allie turns around. Campbell's blood is a crimson stain on the snowdrops, violent in such a pretty place. He's lying on his back where he fell, gasping and shuddering, eyes wide like he can't quite figure out what just happened. Elle's holding the gun.

For one long moment, no one moves. All eyes are on Campbell, and his blood all over the ground. Elle had shot him in the shoulder, not a fatal wound unless he bleeds out. Allie suspects she'd been aiming for his heart.

“Luke,” Allie says, her voice steady and cool, “now would be the time.” He looks at her blankly for just one second, before springing into action, fingers trembling when he draws the key to her handcuffs out of his pocket, and quickly removes them. He's shaking a little, but as long as he's followed her instructions, he's got nothing to be afraid of. Allie rubs at the red marks on her wrists as Luke steps back and produces one of Helena's guns from his waistband, which he levels at the rest of the group.

“This,” Allie says, loud enough that they all can hear, “is how you stage a coup. I suggest you put your hands up.” They do as they're told, Jason and Clark looking like they have no idea how they ended up here. Lexie looks terrified. Harry is unreadable, but his eyes are on her, not Luke.

Elle's still standing over Campbell, gun aimed at him, while he lies there and bleeds. Allie steps around Luke to approach her. She thinks Elle's considering shooting him again, so Allie puts a hand on her arm.

“Not yet. I need him alive. For now.”

Campbell's looking up at Allie, and he might be bleeding everywhere, still taking shuddering breaths, but his eyes are furious. Allie leans over him, close, so only Campbell can hear what she says next.

“You think you own people, because you know how to scare them. You know their weaknesses and their pressure points and exactly what to hold over their heads. You don't care that it makes them hate you, but you should. You think you're so clever, so much smarter than everyone else in the room. You were so sure, weren't you? That they belonged to you. But Elle doesn't. And Luke doesn't. And here's my favorite part,” Allie feels her lips curl up in something that might be a smile, but could be a snarl, “Harry doesn't either. Maybe you should have checked who was waking up in his bed every morning. Maybe if you'd done that, you would have seen this coming.”

Allie straightens up, raises her voice so everyone can hear. “You're always so busy, playing with people, threatening people, pulling the strings to make them dance. You were too busy to see that maybe _you_ should be scared of _me_ , Cousin.”

When she turns around to face the rest of the group, Clark is finally starting to look angry, cheeks getting red as he glares at Allie and Luke.

“What are you going to do, Allie? So you get out of here, so what? the town already convicted to you! You've been sentenced! Walking away from here is only temporary!”

“Which is exactly why I've had Luke filming all of Campbell's little planning sessions for days now,” Allie says sweetly. “He wanted Luke on his side so badly, it didn't even occur to him that we both knew that was coming. And, of course, Campbell really likes the sound of his own voice, you know? He really went and laid everything out there, from his plans to steal the election, to getting _you_ on board, Lexie, to framing me for Thanksgiving, which he very conveniently admitted he knows I didn't do. Good luck explaining all that away. Gordie's probably even done editing it all together by now, probably a bad idea not arresting him when you arrested me.” Allie can't help but feel a little satisfied that Lexie looks a lot like she might throw up.

“So now the question is, what am I going to do with _you?_ ” she asks. It's not a real question. Allie's been thinking about this a lot, because they're the loose end. Campbell's alive, but she doesn't plan on keeping him that way too long. Just long enough to make sure that everyone's ire will be turned on _him_ , and for that she needs him, alive and breathing. It's much harder to make people hate a ghost.

“Lexie and Harry,” She keeps her eyes on Lexie, she's afraid looking at Harry will break her cool detachment. “You two will stay mayors publicly for the next couple of days while I pull together Campbell's trial. You won't say a word about anything that happened here, and you're going to smile while you do it. And when this is over, you can have council member positions, where I can keep an eye on you.

“And you two...” Allie switches her focus to Jason and Clark. “I'm gonna give you a choice,” she says, soft. “I'll let you pretend you were in on this with me the whole time, that you didn't actually support a psychopath for a little tiny taste of power that he was never going to actually give you. I'll let you come out of all this smelling like roses. You get to keep your jobs. And if you ever go behind my back about _anything_ ever again, I'll make sure you _wish_ that what happened to Campbell today happened to you instead. Or, you can go down with him right now and I'll get three seats ready for the trial. Your choice.” Jason swallows nervously and looks at Clark.

“We're uh... We're with you, Allie,” Jason says, finally.

“Fantastic.” She might actually rot out her teeth if she pretends to be any sweeter. “Well then, Luke, you and Jason take Campbell to the clinic. Gordie and Kelly should be there and ready for him. We can't let him bleed to death before we get a chance to put him on trial, so someone put some pressure on that wound, won't you? Clark you get to escort Harry and Lexie back to my house and free Will. He'll be keeping an eye on you three. Elle and her gun will go with you to make sure you behave.”

“And where are you going?” Clark has the balls to ask.

“That's my business, Clark.” Allie's fucking freezing, that's the only thing she can honestly think about at this point. “So, in the words of my cousin here, let's not waste time, shall we?”

For the first time since sitting in the church, Allie meets Harry's eyes. His expression is still carefully blank. Even now, after this, he still has a role she needs him to play for a little while. She'd told Campbell about Harry in a fit of anger, but as of right now, no one else knows. She wants him to keep an eye on Lexie the next couple of days, though Allie sincerely doubts she'll try anything.

As they start to follow her orders, Allie takes a chance. For a just a moment, as she passes him, Allie brushes the back of her hand against Harry's, so briefly it could be an accident. She glances at him as she goes. Harry swallows, takes a steadying breath, and then tilts his chin just ever so slightly, an acknowledgement, an acceptance. She wants so badly to hug him. But she can't. Not yet. She walks away from everyone, head held high, too cold, but triumphant, as she steps freely into the woods.

 

The truth is, Allie doesn't have a job for herself. She'd sent everyone off on errands so she could take a moment to curl into a ball and hyperventilate by herself. She gives herself ten minutes, shaking and sobbing and feeling every iota of fear she'd denied herself, and then she pulls herself together, wiping the tears from her eyes and her cheeks and taking slow deep breaths. She can't feel her fingers anymore.

She goes to the clinic first, even though the only thing she wants to do is curl up in her bed wrapped in a thousand blankets and go to sleep. She's emotionally drained, mentally exhausted, and physically freezing. But she's come this far. She has to make sure Campbell hasn't actually gone and died on her. She wouldn't put it past him to will himself into it as a final moment of spite.

For once, luck is on her side, and by the time she arrives at the clinic, everything seems to have mostly sorted itself out. Campbell's patched up, drugged, and handcuffed to one of the hospital beds. Gordie's still there, keeping an eye on things, but Kelly's gone home for the day. Luke and Jason are sitting silently in a corner, not speaking to each other.

Gordie hugs Allie for almost a full minute when she arrives, and then proceeds to yell at her. She smiles despite herself, while Gordie rants about acceptable amounts of risk, and how he cannot believe she put him in the middle of her putting her life in jeopardy. Then he hugs her again.

 

Allie stays at the clinic until she gets full feeling back into her fingers and she's no longer shivering. There's still the walk home, and she's so tired she seriously considers curling up on one of the hospital beds and just sleeping right there, but she can't stand the idea of sleeping with Campbell so close by, and she really wants her own room and her own bed. She waves goodbye to Gordie before going, fatigue tugging at her bones.

Harry's in the hallway, still wearing his coat. He looks surprised to see her. 

“I thought you'd be home by now,” he says, hands shoved in his pockets and his cheeks a little pink from the cold. 

“No rest for the wicked.”

Silence falls between them, the reality of the situation settling over Allie. Harry's expression shifts a little. She'd asked him to trust her, and she'd been right, but she can't really imagine what must have been going through his head the moments before Elle shot Campbell instead of her.

“That was a shit plan,” he says, finally.

“It _worked_.” Allie can't help but be a little defensive. She'd worked hard on that. It had taken days to get everything just right. He has _no idea_ -

“It involved you hoping Campbell would let Elle shoot you instead of doing it himself!” Harry snaps. “That's fucked up, Allie!”

“There was a backup plan! Luke would have shot Campbell instead if he'd said no to Elle! I just wanted to give her a chance to do it first!”

“Are you kidding me? You gambled your life to let Elle shoot Campbell instead of Luke?!”

“Well, when you put it like that-”

“What other way is there to put it?!” She doesn't know when Harry got so close, but he's right in front of her now, and she doesn't think his cheeks are pink from the cold anymore. He's a little breathless.

“Look, I knew he'd let Elle be the one to do it.” Truth be told, Allie had about 98% sure, but she's not about to tell Harry that. He already looks moments away from full out yelling.

“How?”

“Because he gets off on thinking he's corrupted her. I knew he'd be too intrigued by her wanting to commit violence to say no.” Allie tells him. “Elle told me what he's like with her. It was a safe bet.”

“A safe bet?”

Allie can feel the cold of the wall at her back, pressing between her shoulder blades, and Harry's warm in front of her, forehead nearly brushing hers. She curls her fingers around the lapels of his coat, holding him there.

“Bad word choice?”

Harry closes his eyes. “You're gonna be the death of me, Pressman.”

“Yeah, I can be pretty scary when I want.”

Harry laughs, sincerely amused. “Is that supposed to be a joke?” His nose bumps hers. “Because you genuinely terrifying sometimes. I hope you know that.”

Allie grins, tilts her chin up. His lips are warm against hers, when she kisses him, unhurried.

The door to the hallway swings open. Luke stutters to a stop when he sees them, forehead to forehead, Allie's hands curled into Harry's coat, his on her waist.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to- I was just going to the bathroom.” He slides past them before either of them have a chance to answer, eyes averted. Harry takes a step back from her, eyes bright.

“I guess I'll be glad for Helena he wasn't as much of a douche as I thought he was, but I still kind of want to kill him right now.”

Allie rolls her eyes. “He means well.”

“Sure.”

“Be nice, Harry. You two will probably have to work together a lot in the future with you on the council.”

Harry groans. “You were serious about that? You're actually going to make me go into government?”

“I'm afraid so. It turns out you actually have some good ideas sometimes.” She's planning to rib him a little more, but when she opens her mouth to do so, all that comes out is an exhausted yawn. God, she needs to sleep.

“Go home,” Harry says, nudging her in the direction of the door. “I'll see you in the morning.” The easy way he says it, the statement of a fact, more than anything else, leaves Allie smiling. She's still smiling as she turns her feet towards home.

 

When she gets back, Will's in the living room alone. There's a movie on the TV, but he's staring out the window instead. He feels so distant, Allie isn't sure how she'll ever bridge that distance she's put between them.

“Hey,” she says, leaning against the door frame, scared he might just not answer her, but he tears his eyes away from the window and looks at her.

“Hey.”

“I, um... I guess they told you. About everything.”

“Yeah,” he says, and there's an undercurrent of something sad in his tone and she's not entirely sure why.

“I want to talk,” Allie tells him, and it's true, even though it's also true that the thought of doing so makes her want to throw up. “But I really need to sleep first.”

“Right.” He nods, then looks away, and Allie feels the moment slipping through her fingers.

“Will.” He looks at her again. “I need you to know that I know I've fucked up our relationship, but nothing I did was because of that. I wasn't trying to spite you for anything, for how I felt before, it was never that.”

His expression softens ever so slightly. “I never thought it was.”

“Okay.” As long as he's looking at her like that, she has a chance to fix this. Maybe not right away, but eventually. “I'll see you later then.”

“See you later.” Will hesitates. “Tell Harry I'm keeping an eye on him when you wake up, alright?”

Allie bites back a smile. “Do I get to threaten Kelly too?”

Will shrugs. “You've had months to do that by now. I'm just making up for lost time.”

Allie snorts. “Okay, I'll tell him.” She feels ever so slightly lighter as she turns away from the living room and takes the steps up to her bedroom. They'll be okay.

* * *

 

 

Allie wakes up in her own room and it's so confusing that she sits up, still groggy, trying to figure out what's gone wrong. Harry's asleep in her bed. This has never happened. Allie stares at him for several moments, brain failing to process the information. She's waking up with Harry, but it's in _her_ bed, in _her_ room.

She can't help it, she begins to laugh. Of course they're here now, after months, when it really doesn't matter. Harry stirs, blinking his eyes open, squinting against the light, and looking up at her.

“What's going on?” he mumbles, unconcerned and rumpled.

“We're in _my_ bed,” Allie tells him.

“Huh.”

“We're in _my_ bed, Harry.”

“Congratulations.” He buries his face back into his pillow. “I'm not getting up yet.”

“Harry!” Allie shoves his shoulder, which only results in him rolling over onto his back. He keeps his eyes closed. He looks so comfortable there, Allie's heart thumps a little harder in her chest. It's an illusion, she knows, how carefree he is. There's still so much to do. For both of them. A couple more days to deal with Campbell and then however long it will take Harry to detox, and then... She doesn't really know. She doesn't think that's all it takes to fix something as big as addiction, doesn't really think that's something you _fix_ , so much as manage. But right now, in this moment, he looks so unconcerned about everything. She lets herself feel that.

“It's early. We can go back to sleep,” he tells her, interrupting her thoughts. He doesn't _know_ that, he's just saying what he wants to be true. But he's right. A glance at the clock beside her bed tells her it's 4:30 in the morning, and they have time.

Allie lies back down, rests her head on his chest and wraps an arm around his waist. Harry hums lowly in the back of his throat, content. There's a fire in Allie's chest, just behind her sternum, but it's warm, gentle, the anger all burned out.

“You know,” Harry says, and Allie angles her chin up so she can see his face. His eyes are open now, and he's looking at something across the room, on the shelf over her desk, “I'm still coming for that title, Pressman.”

The hockey trophy, glinting dully in the low light of the room, sitting there on the shelf where she'd stashed it.

“I'd like to see you try,” Allie tells him.

Harry tilts his chin down and presses a lazy kiss to her temple. “Count on it. But until then, let me go back to sleep.” She's almost drifted back to sleep herself when Harry says something else.

“I've been thinking...”

“That's dangerous.” He swats at her arm half heartedly.

“There's probably a world somewhere,” Harry says, and his voice rumbles through his chest, against her skin, “where we never worked any of this out, and you and I are on opposite sides and always will be.”

“Probably.” It wouldn't be hard, she thinks, to have ended up somewhere else, anywhere else. They fought for this, a small sliver of peace in a fucked up world. It might be all they get.

“I'm glad it's not this one.”

“Me too.” Under her cheek, his heartbeat is steady, in sync with hers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we're finally at the end! it honestly feels so weird to be done with this for now! 
> 
> as you can see, I've tried not to move too far forward in time with this section so that I can (possibly) work with season 2 when it comes out (in sequel format if I do), but I also wanted to deal with the Campbell situation & end this in a way that if we didn't get a season 2 (yes, I'm very glad we did!) or I don't write a sequel it can stand on its own. I'm not a big fan of "absolutely everything is wrapped up with a bow on it" endings anyway, so I hope you like the way I left things! I've had the final paragraph or so written for AGES and I knew that's how I wanted the final scene to end for a long time now. 
> 
> also, I gave Luke the storyline I wanted him to have in the show, because I was so upset at him turning out to be spineless. but of COURSE I had to let Elle be the one to shoot Campbell. and I mean, there's great set up for that (or her ultimately being the one to end him) in the show. Campbell's reckless with Elle because he does enjoy the idea of her being violent so much, so I can totally see him handing over the gun to her in that moment and believing his control over her was so strong she wouldn't turn it on him. and anyway, I expect to see something somewhat similar in the show (fingers crossed). 
> 
> thanks everyone for all your lovely support on this fic! it's meant the world to me!

**Author's Note:**

> hello new loves, 
> 
> this is a new account and a new ship for me, so I have no idea how any of this will be received. I've been very lucky in the past to write for big fandoms known for giving loads of support and feedback to their writers, so this is a very new experience for me, & I'm excited to start to get to know this new fandom space better. 
> 
> I've made some timeline alterations for this story to fit how I want it to- so no, prom hasn't happened yet. Cassandra is still alive (for now). etc. etc.  
> I also took the liberty of deciding that Allie hadn't had sex before, which may or may not be true in the show, but kind of the impression I got, considering she didn't seem to know about UTIs and her response "that was it" seemed to me to not entirely be about the performance (though somewhat) and be about her expectations for sex not matching what it actually is, which I think is pretty common for a lot of people. SO, hope that answers most of the questions you might have after reading this chapter.
> 
> I have most of the next chapter written, but I'm still editing it. The intent of this fic is to cover the majority of the season 1 content and perhaps a little past the finale. It is also my intent to stick pretty close to canon, but with some additional scenes and divergences in Harry & Allie's relationship, so keep in mind that this fic will feature Harry's drug abuse and mental health issues, as well as Cassandra's death. I will also touch on what's been going on between Elle and Campbell, though I don't intend for it to be featured.


End file.
